MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

•     u. 

The  Personal  Confessions  of 
Well  Known  American  Authors 

Collected  by  the 
AUTHORS'  LEAGUE  OF  AMERICA 

Edited  by 


BUKGESS 


MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 


MY 
MAIDEN  EFFORT 

Being  the  Personal  Confessions  of 
tf^ell- known  American  Authors 
as  to  their  Literary  Beginnings 


WITH    AN    INTRODUCTION 

BY 
GELETT    BURGESS 


PUBLISHED    FOR 

THE  AUTHORS'  LEAGUE  OF  AMERICA 

BY 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

GARDEN    CITY,   N.   Y. ,   AND   TORONTO 
1921 


COPYRIGHT,  1921,  BY 
DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED,  INCLUDING  THAT  OF  TRANSLATION 
INTO  FOREIGN  LANGUAGES,  INCLUDING  THE  SCANDINAVIAN 

COPYRIGHT,   I9l8,   1919,  I92O,   1921,  BY  THE  AUTHORS*  LEAGUE  OF    AMERICA,  INC 

PRINTED  AT  GARDEN  CITY,  N.  Y.,  U.   S.  A. 

THE  COUNTRY  LIFE  PRESS 

First  Edition 


LIST  OF  AUTHORS 


Adams,  Samuel  Hopkins 

Author  of:  The  Great  American  Fraud;  The  Mystery  (with  Stewart 
Edward  White);  The  Flying  Death;  Average  Jones;  The  Secret  of 
Lonesome  Cove;  The  Clarion;  Little  Miss  Grouch;  The  Unspeakable 
Perk;  Our  Square  and  the  People  in  It;  Common  Cause. 

Ade,   George    

Author  of:  Artie;  Pink  Marsh;  Doc  Home;  Fables  in  Slang;  More 
Fables;  The  Girl  Proposition;  People  You  Knew;  Breaking  Into 
Society;  True  Bills;  In  Pastures  New;  The  Slim  Princess;  Knocking 
the  Neighbors;  Ade's  Fables.  Plays:  The  Sultan  of  Sulu;  Peggy  from 
Paris;  The  County  Chairman;  The  Sho-Gun;  The  College  Widow;  The 
Bad  Samaritan;  Just  Out  of  College;  Marse  Covington;  Mrs.  Peck- 
ham's  Carouse;  Father  and  the  Boys;  The  Fair  Co-Ed;  The  Old 
Town;  Nettie. 


Allen,  James  Lane. 


Author  of:  Flute  and  Violin;  The  Blue  Grass  Region,  and  Other 
Sketches  of  Kentucky;  John  Gray;  A  Kentucky  Cardinal;  Aftermath; 
A  Summer  in  Arcady;  The  Choir  Invisible;  The  Reign  of  Law;  The 
Mettle  of  the  Pasture;  The  Bride  of  the  Mistletoe;  The  Doctor's 
Christmas  Eve;  The  Heroine  in  Bronze;  The  Last  Christmas  Tree; 
Sword  of  Youth;  The  Cathedral  Singer;  Kentucky  Warbler;  Emblems 
of  Fidelity. 

Atherton,    Gertrude    8 

Author  of:  The  Doomswpman;  A  Whirl  Asunder;  Patience  Spar- 
hawk  and  Her  Times;  His  Fortunate  Grace;  American  Wives  and 
English  Husbands;  The  Californians;  A  Daughter  of  the  Vine;  The 
Valiant  Runaways;  Senator  North;  The  Aristocrats;  The  Conqueror; 
The  Splendid  Idle  Forties;  A  Few  of  Hamilton's  Letters;  Rulers  of 
Kings;  The  Bell  in  the  Fog;  The  Traveling  Thirds;  Rezanov;  An 
cestors;  The  Gorgeous  Isle;  Tower  of  Ivory;  Julia  France  and  Her 
Times;  Perch  of  the  Devil;  California — an  Intimate  History;  Before 
the  Gringo  Came;  Mrs.  Balfame;  The  Living  Present;  The  White 
Morning;  The  Avalanche. 

Austin,  Mary   12 

Author  of:  The  Land  of  Little  Rain;  The  Basket  Woman;  Isidro; 
The  Flock;  Santa  Lucia;  Lost  Borders;  Christ  in  Italy;  Woman  of 


The  Trail  Book;  Outland. 


4647 V 


LIST  OF  AUTHORS 

PAGE 

Bacheller,  Irving 17 

Author  of:  The  Master  of  Silence;  The  Still  House  of  O'Darrow; 
Eben  Holden;  D'ri  and  I;  Barrel  of  the  Blessed  Isles;  Vergilius; 
Silas  Strong;  The  Hand  Made  Gentleman;  The  Master;  Keeping  Up 
With  Lizzie;  Charge  It;  The  Turning  of  Griggsby;  Marryers;  The 
Light  in  the  Clearing;  Keeping  Up  With  William;  A  Man  for  the 
Ages. 

Bacon,  Josephine  Dodge  Daskam 17 

Author  of:  Smith  College  Stories;  Sister's  Vocation  and  Other  Girls' 
Stories;  The  Imp  and  the  Angel;  Fables  for  the  Fair;  The  Madness  of 
Philip;  Whom  the  Gods  Destroyed;  Middle  Aged  Love  Stories;  Poems; 
Memoirs  of  a  Baby;  Her  Fiance;  The  Domestic  Adventurers;  Ten  to 
Seventeen;  An  Idyll  of  All  Fools'  Day;  In  the  Border  Country;  Biog 
raphy  of  a  Boy;  While  Caroline  Was  Growing;  Margarita's  Soul; 
The  Inheritance;  The  Strange  Cases  of  Doctor  Stanchon;  The  Luck  o' 
Lady  Joan;  To-day's  Daughter;  Open  Market.  Compiled:  Best 
Nonsense  Verse;  On  Our  Hill;  Square  Peggy. 

Baker,  Ray  Stannard   19 

Author  of:  Boys'  Book  of  Inventions;  Our  New  Prosperity;  Seen  in 
Germany;  Second  Boys'  Book  of  Inventions;  Following  the  Color  Line; 
New  Ideals  in  Healing;  The  Spiritual  Unrest;  What  Wilson  Did  at 
Paris.  Also  under  pseudonym  of  David  Grayson:  Adventures  in 
Contentment;  Adventures  in  Friendship;  The  Friendly  Road;  Hemp- 
field;  Great  Possessions. 

Barbour,    Ralph   Henry    22 

Author  of:  Phyllis  in  Bohemia  (with  L.  H.  Bickford) ;  The  Halfback; 
For  the  Honor  of  the  School;  Captain  of  the  Crew;  Behind  the  Line; 
The  Land  of  Joy;  Weatherby's  Inning;  The  Book  of  School  and 
College  Sports;  On  Your  Mark;  The  Arrival  of  Jimpson;  Kitty  of 
the  Roses;  Four  in  Camp;  An  Orchard  Princess;  Four  Afoot;  The 
Crimson  Sweater;  A  Maid  in  Arcady;  Holly;  Tom,  Dick  and  Harriet; 
Four  Afloat;  The  Spirit  of  the  School;  Harry's  Island;  Forward 
Pass;  My  Lady  of  the  Fog;  Captain  Chub;  Double  Play;  The  Lilac 
Girl;  The  Golden  Heart;  Winning  His  "Y";  The  New  Boy  at 
Hilltop;  Kingsford,  Quarter;  The  House  in  the  Hedge;  Team  Mates; 
For  Yardley;  Finkler's  Field;  Joyce  of  the  Jasmines;  The  Harbor  of 
Love;  Crofton  Chums;  Cupid  en  Route;  Change  Signals;  The  Junior 
Trophy;  Around  the  End;  Lady  Laughter;  Partners  Three;  Benton's 
Venture;  The  Brother  of  a  Hero;  Left  End  Edwards;  The  Story  My 
Doggie  Told  to  Me;  The  Lucky  Seventh;  Danforth  Plays  the  Game; 
The  Secret  Play;  Left  Tackle  Thayer;  Heart's  Content,  etc. 

Beach,  Rex   24 

Author  of:  Pardners;  The  Spoilers;  The  Barrier;  The  Silver  Horde; 
Going  Some;  The  Ne'er-do- Well ;  The  Net;  The  Iron  Trail;  The 
Auction  Block;  Heart  of  the  Sunset;  Rainbow's  End;  The  Crimson 
Gardenia;  The  Winds  of  Chance.  Plays:  Going  Some  (with  Paul 
Armstrong);  The  Spoilers  (with  James  McArthur). 

Boyle,    Virginia    Frazer 28 

Author  of:  Brokenburne;  Devil  Tales;  Serena;  Love  Songs  and 
Bugle  Calls;  Union;  Christ  in  the  Argonne;  Song  of  Memphis. 

vi 


LIST  OF  AUTHORS 


Braley,  Berton  30 

Author  of:  Sonnets  of  a  Freshman;  Oracle  on  Smoke;  Sonnets  of  a 
Suffragette;  Songs  of  a  Workaday  World;  Things  As  They  Are; 
A  Banjo  at  Armageddon;  In  Camp  and  Trench;  Buddy  Ballads. 

Burgess,  Gelett   31 

Author  of:  Vivette;  The  Lively  City  o'  Ligg;  Goops  and  How  to  be 
Them;  A  Gage  of  Youth  (poems);  Burgess  Nonsense  Book;  Romance 
of  the  Commonplace  (essays);  More  Goops;  The  Picaroons  (with 
Will  Irwin);  The  Reign  of  Queen  Isyl  (with  same);  The  Rubaiyat 
of  Omar  Cayenne;  A  Little  Sister  of  Destiny;  Are  You  a  Bromide?; 
The  White  Cat;  The  Heart  Line;  The  Maxims  of  Methuselah;  Blue 
Goops  and  Red;  Lady  Mechante;  Find  the  Woman;  The  Master  of 
Mysteries;  The  Goop  Directory;  The  Maxims  of  Noah;  Love  in  a 
Hurry;  Burgess  Unabridged;  The  Goop  Encyclopaedia;  Romance  of  the 
Commonplace  (enlarged);  War  the  Creator;  Mrs.  Hope's  Husband. 
Gook  Tales.  Plays:  The  Cave  Man. 


Butler,  Ellis  Parker  34 

Author  of:  French  Decorative  Styles;  Pigs  is  Pigs;  The  Incubator 
Baby;  Perkins  of  Portland;  Great  American  Pie  Co.;  Confessions  of 
a  Daddy;  Kilo;  That  Pup;  Cheerful  Smugglers;  Mike  Flannery; 
Thin  Santa  Claus;  Water  Goats;  Adventures  of  a  Suburbanite;  Jack- 
Knife  Man;  Red  Head;  Dominie  Dean;  Goat's  Feathers;  Philo  Gubb. 

Carpenter,  Edward  Childs 35 

Author  of:  The  Chasm;  Captain  Courtesy;  The  Code  of  Victor  Jallot; 
The  Easy  Mark.  Plays:  The  Dragon-Fly  (with  John  Luther  Long); 
Captain  Courtesy;  Remembrance;  The  Barber  of  New  Orleans;  The 
Challenge;  The  Tongues  of  Men;  The  Cinderella  Man;  The  Pipes  of 
Pan;  The  Three  Bears. 

Chambers,  Robert  W 37 

Author  of:  In  the  Quarter;  The  King  in  Yellow;  The  Red  Republic; 
A  King  and  a  Few  Dukes;  The  Maker  of  Moons;  With  the  Band; 
The  Mystery  of  Choice;  Lorraine;  Ashes  of  Empire;  The  Haunts  of 
Men;  The  Cambric  Mask;  Outsiders;  The  Conspirators;  Cardigan; 
The  Maid-at-Arms;  Outdoor-Land;  The  Maids  of  Paradise;  Orchard- 
Land;  Forest  Land;  lole;  The  Fighting  Chance;  Mountain  Land; 
Tracer  of  Lost  Persons;  The  Tree  of  Heaven;  The  Firing  Line; 
Some  Ladies  in  Haste;  The  Danger  Mark;  The  Special  Messenger; 
Hide  and  Seek  in  Forestland;  The  Green  Mouse;  Ailsa  Page;  Blue 
bird  Weather;  Japonette;  Streets  of  Ascalon;  Adventures  of  a  Modest 
Man;  Business  of  Life;  The  Common  Law;  Gay  Rebellion;  Who 
Goes  There;  The  Hidden  Children;  Athalie;  Police!  !  !  ;  The  Dark 
Star;  The  Better  Man;  The  Girl  Philippa;  Barbarians;  The  Restless 
Sex;  The  Moonlit  Way;  In  Secret;  The  Crimson  Tide.  Plays:  The 
Witch  of  Elangowan. 

Child,  Richard  Washburn  38 

Author  of:  Jim  Hands;  The  Man  in  the  Shadow;  The  Blue  Wall; 
Potential  Russia;  Bodbank. 

vii 


LIST  OF  AUTHORS 


Cobb,  Irvin  S 40 

Author  of:  Back  Home;  Cobb's  Anatomy;  The  Escape  of  Mr.  Trimm; 
Cobb's  Bill  of  Fare;  Roughing  it  De  Luxe;  Europe  Revised;  Paths 
of  Glory;  Old  Judge  Priest;  Fibble,  D.D. ;  Speaking  of  Operations — ; 
Local  Color;  Speaking  of  Prussians — ;  Those  Times  and  These;  The 
Glory  of  the  Coming;  The  Thunders  of  Silence;  The  Life  of  the 
Party;  From  Place  to  Place;  Oh,  Well,  You  Know  How  Women 
Arel;  The  Abandoned  Farmers.  Wrote:  New  York  Through  Funny 
Glasses  series;  The  Hotel  Clerk  series;  Live  Talks  With  Dead  Ones; 
Making  Peace  at  Portsmouth;  The  Belled  Buzzard;  Twixt  the  Bluff 
and  the  Sound;  Shakespeare's  Seven  Ages  and  Mine;  The  Island  of 
Adventure,  etc.  Plays:  Funabashi;  Mr.  Busybody;  Back  Home  (with 
Bayard  Veiller) ;  Sergeant  Bagby  (with  Bozeman  Bulger) ;  Guilty  as 
Charged  (with  Harry  Burke);  Under  Sentence  (with  Roi  Cooper 
Megrue). 

Cooke,  Edmund  Vance    42 

Author  of:  A  Patch  of  Pansies;  Rimes  to  Be  Read;  Impertinent 
Poems;  Chronicles  of  the  Little  Tot;  Told  to  the  Little  Tot;  A 
Morning's  Mail;  Little  Songs  for  Two;  I  Rule  the  House;  Basbology; 
The  Story  Club;  The  Uncommon  Commoner;  Just  Then  Something 
Happened. 

Cutting,  Mary  Stewart   44 

Author  of:  Little  Stories  of  Married  Life;  Heart  of  Lynn;  Little 
Stories  of  Courtship;  More  Stories  of  Married  Life;  The  Suburban 
Whirl;  The  Wayfarers;  Just  For  Two;  The  Unforeseen;  Lovers  of 
Sanna;  Refractory  Husbands;  The  Blossoming  Rod. 


Dawson,   Coningsby   47 

Author  of:  The  Worker  and  Other  Poems;  The  House  of  the  Weeping 
Woman;  Murder  Point;  The  Road  to  Avalon;  The  Garden  Without 
Walls;  Florence  on  a  Certain  Night  (poems);  The  Raft;  Slaves  of 
Freedom;  The  Seventh  Christmas;  Carry  On;  The  Glory  of  the 
Trenches;  Out  to  Win;  Living  Bayonets;  The  Test  of  Scarlet. 

Delano,   Edith  Barnard    48 

Authpr  of:  Zebedee  V.;  The  Land  of  Content;  The  Colonel's  Experi 
ment;  Rags;  The  White  Pearl;  June;  To-morrow  Morning;  Two 
Alike. 


Dodd,    Lee    Wilson    49 

Author   of:      The    Book   of    Susan.       (Poems)    A    Modern    Alchemist; 
The  Middle  Miles.     Plays:     The  Return  of  Eve;  Speed;  Pals  First. 

Dodge,   Henry  Irving   52 

Author  of:  The  Other  Mr.  Barclay;  The  Hat  and  the  Man; 
Skinner's  Dress  Suit;  Skinner's  Baby;  Skinner's  Big  Idea;  He  Made 
His  Wife  His  Partner.  Plays:  The  Counsel  for  the  Defense;  The 
Higher  Court;  The  Whirlpool;  The  Love  Thought;  The  Recoil. 

viii 


LIST  OF  AUTHORS 


Eaton,  Walter  Prichard   54 

Author  of:  The  American  Stage  of  Today;  The  Runaway  Place  (with 
Elise  Underbill);  At  the  New  Theatre  and  Others;  Boy  Scouts  of 
Berkshire;  Boy  Scouts  in  the  Dismal  Swamp;  Barn  Doors  and  By 
ways;  The  Man  Who  Found  Christmas;  Boy  Scouts  in  the  White 
Mountains;  The  Idyl  of  Twin  Fires;  New  York;  Boy  Scouts  of  the 
Wild  Cat  Patrol;  Plays  and  Players;  The  Bird  House  Man;  Peanut, 
Cub  Reporter;  Green  Trails  and  Upward  Pastures;  Newark;  Boy 
Scouts  in  Glacier  Park ;  Echoes  and  Realities  (verse) ;  In  Berkshire 
Fields. 

England,   George  Allan    55 

Author  of:  Underneath  the  Bough;  The  Story  of  the  Appeal;  Dark 
ness  and  Dawn;  The  Air  Trust;  The  Alibi;  Pod,  Bender  &  Co.;  The 
Golden  Blight;  The  Gift  Supreme;  The  Greater  Crime;  Cursed;  Keep 
Off  the  Grass;  Their  Son;  The  Necklace  (Spanish  trans.);  The  Flying 
Legion. 

Ferber,  Edna   57 

Author  of:  Dawn  O'Hara;  Buttered  Side  Down;  Roast  Beef  Medium; 
Personality  Plus;  Emma  McChesney  &  Co.;  Fanny  Herself;  Cheerful 
— By  Request. 

Flagg,  James  Montgomery 58 

Author  of:  Yankee  Girls  Abroad;  Tomfoolery;  "If" — a  Guide  to  Bad 
Manners;  Why  They  Married;  All  in  the  Same  Boat;  City  People;  The 
Adventures  of  Kitty  Cobb;  I  Should  Say  So;  The  Mystery  of  the 
Hated  Man. 

ForHes,  James   61 

Author  of:  (Plays)  The  Chorus  Lady;  The  Traveling  Salesman;  The 
Commuters;  A  Rich  Man's  Son;  The  Show  Shop;  The  Famous  Mrs. 
Fair. 

Forman,  Henry  James  63 

Author  of:  In  the  Footprints  of  Heine;  The  Ideal  Italian  Tour; 
London — An  Intimate  Picture;  The  Captain  of  His  Soul;  Fire  of 
Youth.  Plays:  Prisoner  of  the  World  (with  Margaret  Mayo). 

Garland,  Hamlin    66 

Author  of:  Main-Traveled  Roads;  Jason  Edwards;  A  Little  Norsk; 
Prairie  Folks;  A  Spoil  of  Office;  A  Member  of  the  3d  House; 
Crumbling  Idols;  Rose  of  Dutchers  Coolly;  Wayside  Courtships; 
Ulysses  Grant;  Prairie  Songs;  The  Spirit  of  Sweetwater;  The  Eagle's 
Heart;  Her  Mountain  Lover;  The  Captain  of  the  Gray  Horse  Troop; 
Hesper;  Light  of  the  Star;  The  Tyranny  of  the  Dark;  The  Long  Trail; 
Money  Magic;  Boy  Life  on  the  Prairie;  The  Shadow  World;  Cavanagh, 
Forest  Ranger j  Victor  Olnee's  Discipline;  Other  Main  Traveled  Roads; 
A  Son  of  the  Middle  Border. 

Garrison,  Theodosia 67 

Author  of:  The  Joy  o'  Life  and  Other  Poems;  Earth  Cry  and  Other 
Poems;  The  Dreamers. 

ix 


LIST  OF  AUTHORS 


Gates,  Eleanor 69 

Author  of:  The  Biography  of  a  Prairie  Girl;  The  Plow- Woman; 
Good  Night;  Cupid,  The  Cow-Punch;  The  Justice  of  Gideon;  Spinners; 
Plays:  The  Poor  Little  Rich  Girl;  We  Are  Seven;  Apron-Strings; 
Phoebe;  Piggie. 

Gerould,  Katharine  Fullerton  71 

Author  of:  Vain  Oblations;  The  Great  Tradition;  Hawaii,  Scenes 
and  Impressions;  A  Change  of  Air;  Modes  and  Morals. 

Glass,   Montague 75 

Author  of:  Potash  and  Perlmutter;  Abe  and  Mawruss;  Elkan  Lub- 
liner — American;  Object:  Matrimony;  Competitive  Nephew;  Worrying 
Won't  Win;  Potash  and  Perlmutter  Settle  Things.  Plays:  Potash 
and  Perlmutter  (with  Charles  Klein) ;  Abe  and  Mawruss  (with  R. 
C.  Megrue);  Object:  Matrimony  (with  J.  E.  Goodman);  Business 
Before  Pleasure;  Why  Worry?;  His  Hat  in  the  Ring. 

Grant,  Robert 76 

Author  of:  The  Confessions  of  a  Frivolous  Girl;  The  Little  Tin 
Gods-on- Wheels;  The  Lambs;  Yankee  Doodle;  The  Oldest  School  in 
America;  Jack  Hall;  Jack  in  the  Bush;  The  Carletons;  Mrs.  Harold 
Stagg;  An  Average  Man;  The  Knave  of  Hearts;  A  Romantic  Young 
Lady;  Face  to  Face;  The  Bachelor's  Christmas,  and  Other  Stories; 
The  Reflections  of  a  Married  Man;  The  Opinions  of  a  Philosopher; 
The  Art  of  Living;  Search-Light  Letters;  Unleavened  Bread;  The 
Undercurrent;  The  Orchid;  The  Law-breakers;  The  Chippendales; 
The  Convictions  of  a  Grandfather;  The  High  Priestess;  Their  Spirit; 
Law  and  the  Family. 

Green,  Anna  Katharine   78 

Author  of:  The  Leavenworth  Case;  A  Strange  Disappearance;  The 
Sword  of  Damocles;  Hand  and  Ring;  The  Mill  Mystery;  Marked 
"Personal";  Miss  Kurd — An  Enigma;  Behind  Closed  Doors;  Cynthia 
Wakeham's  Money;  Dr.  Izard;  Old  Stone  House,  and  Other  Stories; 
7  to  12;  X,  Y,  Z;  The  Doctor,  His  Wife  and  the  Clock;  That  Affair 
Next  Door;  Lost  Man's  Lane;  Agatha  Webb;  Risifi's  Daughter,  a 
Drama ;  The  Defense  of  the  Bride  (dramatic  poem) ;  A  Difficult 
Problem,  and  Other  Stories;  The  Circular  Study;  One  of  My  Sons; 
The  Filigree  Ball;  House  in  the  Mist;  The  Millionaire  Baby;  The 
Amethyst  Box;  The  Woman  in  the  Alcove;  The  Chief  Legatee;  The 
Mayor's  Wife;  Three  Thousand  Dollars;  The  House  of  the  Whispering 
Pines;  Initials  Only;  Masterpieces  of  Mystery;  Golden  Slipper  and 
Other  Problems  for  Violet  Strange;  Mystery  of  the  Hasty  Arrow. 

Grey,  Zane  80 

Author  of:  Betty  Zane;  The  Spirit  of  the  Border;  The  Last  Trail; 
The  Last  of  the  Plainsmen;  The  Short-Stop;  The  Heritage  of  the 
Desert;  The  Young  Forester;  The  Young  Pitcher;  Riders  of  the 
Purple  Sage;  Desert  Gold;  Light  of  the  Western  Stars;  The  Lone 
Star  Ranger;  Rainbow  Trail;  The  Border  Legion;  Wildfire;  U.  P. 
Trail;  Desert  of  Wheat;  Tales  of  Fishes;  Man  of  the  Forest. 

Guiterman,  Arthur 83 

Author  of:  Betel  Nuts;  Guest  Book;  Rubaiyat,  including  The  Literal 
Omar;  Orestes  (with  Andre  Tridon) ;  The  Laughing  Muse;  The  Mirth 
ful  Lyre;  Ballads  of  Old  New  York. 


LIST  OF  AUTHORS 

PAGE 

Hall,  Holworthy   (Harold  E.  Porter) 84 

Author  of:  My  Next  Imitation;  Henry  of  Navarre,  Ohio;  Pepper; 
Paprika;  Help  Wanted;  What  He  Least  Expected;  Dormie  One;  The 
Man  Nobody  Knew;  The  Six  Best  Cellars  (with  Hugh  Kohler) ;  Egan. 

Hamilton,  Cosmo 88 

Author  of:  Adam's  Clay;  Brummell;  The  Blindness  of  Virtue;  Duke's 
Son;  The  Infinite  Capacity;  The  Outpost  of  Eternity;  The  Door  That 
Has  No  Key;  A  Plea  for  the  Younger  Generation;  The  Miracle  of 
Love;  His  Friend  and  His  Wife.  Plays:  The  Wisdom  of  Folly; 
A  Sense  of  Humor;  The  Mountain  Climber;  Bridge;  Arsene  Lupin; 
Mrs.  Skeffington;  The  Blindness  of  Virtue;  Scandal. 

Hapgood,  Isabel  F 91 

Author  of:  The  Epic  Songs  of  Russia;  Russian  Rambles;  A  Survey 
of  Russian  Literature;  A  Service  Book  of  the  Holy  Orthodox  Catholic 
(Greco-Russian)  Church  (compiled  and  translated). 

Harrison,  Henry  Sydnor 94 

Author  of:  Captivating  Mary  Carstairs;  Queed;  V.  V.'s  Eyes; 
Angela's  Business;  When  I  Come  Back. 


Hergesheimer,  Joseph   96 

Author  of:  The  Lady  Anthony;  Mountain  Blood;  The  Three  Black 
Pennys;  Gold  and  Iron;  Java  Head;  The  Happy  End;  Linda  Condon. 

Hopper,  James    102 

Author  of:  Caybigan;  Goosie;  The  Freshman;  What  Happened  in  the 
Night;  Co- Author:  "9009";  What  Happened  in  the  Night,  and  Other 
Stories. 

Hopwood,   Avery    105 

Author  of:  (Plays):  This  Woman  and  This  Man;  Seven  Days  (in 
collaboration  with  Mary  Roberts  Rinehart) ;  Judy  Forgot ;  Nobody's 
Widow;  Fair  and  Warmer;  Sadie  Love;  Our  Little  Wife;  Double 
Exposure;  The  Gold  Diggers. 

Hough,    Emerson 107 

Author  of:  The  Singing  Mouse  Stories;  The  Story  of  the  Cowboy; 
The  Girl  at  the  Halfway  House;  The  Mississippi  Bubble;  The  Way 
to  the  West;  The  Law  of  the  Land;  Heart's  Desire;  The  King  of 
Gee  Whiz;  The  Story  of  the  Outlaw;  The  Way  of  a  Man;  Fifty- 
four  Forty  or  Fight;  The  Sowing;  The  Young  Alaskans;  The 
Purchase  Price;  Young  Alaskans  on  the  Trail;  John  Rawn;  Lady 
and  the  Pirate;  Young  Alaskans  in  the  Rockies;  Young  Alaskans 
on  the  Trail;  The  Magnificent  Adventure;  The  Man  Next  Door; 
The  Broken  Gate;  Young  Alaskans  in  the  Far  North;  The  Way 
Out;  The  Sagebrusher;  The  Web. 

xi 


LIST  OF  AUTHORS 


Hughes,  Rupert 110  « 

Author  of:  The  Lakerim  Athletic  Club;  The  Dozen  From  Lakerim; 
American  Composers;  The  Musical  Guide;  Gyges  Ring  (verse);  The 
Whirlwind;  Love  Affairs  of  Great  Musicians;  Songs  by  Thirty 
Americans;  Zal;  Colonel  Crockett's  Co-operative  Christmas;  The 
Lakerim  Cruise;  The  Gift-Wife;  Excuse  Me;  Miss  318;  The  Old  Nest; 
The  Amiable  Crimes  of  Dirk  Memling;  The  Lady  Who  Smoked  Cigars; 
What  Will  People  Say?;  Music  Lovers'  Cyclopedia;  The  Last  Rose  of 
Summer;  Empty  Pockets;  Clipped  Wings;  The  Thirteenth  Command 
ment;  In  a  Little  Town;  We  Can't  Have  Everything;  Unpardonable 
Sin;  Long  Ever  Ago;  Cup  of  Fury;  Fairy  Detective;  What's  the  World 
Coming  To?  Plays:  The  Wooden  Wedding;  Tommy  Rot;  In  the  Midst 
of  Life;  Alexander  the  Great;  The  Triangle;  The  Richest  Girl  in  the 
World;  My  Boy;  The  Bridge;  Excuse  Me;  Uncle  Zeb. 

Hungerford,  Edward 113 

Author  of:  The  Williamsburgh  Bridge;  The  Modern  Railroad; 
Little  Corky;  Gertrude;  Personality  of  American  Cities;  The  Rail 
road  Problem. 

Hurst,   Fannie    116 

Author  of:  Just  Around  the  Corner;  Every  Soul  Hath  Its  Song; 
Gaslight  Sonatas;  Humoresque;  Star  Dust.  Plays:  The  Land  of  the 
Free;  The  Good  Provider. 

Irwin,  Wallace 118 

Author  of:  The  Love  Sonnets  of  a  Hoodlum;  The  Rubaiyat  of 
Omar  Khayyam,  Jr.;  Fairy  Tales  Up  to  Now;  Nautical  Lays  of  a 
Landsman;  At  the  Sign  of  the  Dollar;  Chinatown  Ballads;  Random 
Rhymes  and  Odd  Numbers;  Letters  of  a  Japanese  Schoolboy;  Mr. 
Togo,  Maid  of  All  Work;  Pilgrims  into  Folly;  Venus  in  the  East; 
The  Blooming  Angel. 

Johnson,  Burges    122 

Author  of:  Rhymes  of  Little  Boys;  Pleasant  Tragedies  of  Child 
hood;  Beastly  Rhymes;  Rhymes  of  Home;  Yearbook  of  Humor; 
Bashful  Ballads;  Rhymes  of  Little  Folk;  A  Private  Code;  Animal 
Rhymes;  The  Well  of  English  and  the  Bucket;  The  Bubble  Books. 

Jordan,  Elizabeth   123 

Author  of:  Tales  of  the  City  Room;  Tales  of  the  Cloister;  Tales 
of  Destiny;  May  Iverson,  Her  Book;  Many  Kingdoms;  May  Iverson 
Tackles  Life;  May  Iverson's  Career;  Lovers'  Knots;  Wings  of  Youth; 
The  Lady  from  Oklahoma;  Beauty  is  Skin  Deep;  The  Story  of  a 
Pioneer  (with  Anna  Howard  Shaw) ;  The  Whole  Family  (with 
Henry  James,  William  Dean  Howells  and  others);  The  Girl  in  the 
Mirror. 

Jordan,    Kate    126 

Author  of:  A  Circle  in  the  Land;  Time  the  Comedian;  The  Creeping 
Tides;  Secret  Strings.  Plays:  Against  the  Winds. 

xii 


LIST  OF  AUTHORS 


Kauffman,  Reginald  Wright   129 

Author  of:  Jarvis  of  Harvard;  The  Things  That  Are  Caesar's;  The 
Chasm;  Miss  Frances  Baird,  Detective;  The  Bachelor's  Guide  to 
Matrimony;  What  is  Socialism?;  My  Heart  and  Stephanie;  The 
House  of  Bondage;  The  Girl  That  Goes  Wrong;  The  Way  of  Peace; 
The  Sentence  of  Silence;  The  Latter  Day  Saints  (with  Ruth  Wright 
Kauffman);  Running  Sands;  The  Spider's  Web;  Little  Old  Belgium; 
In  a  Moment  of  Time;  Jim;  The  Mark  of  the  Beast;  The  Ancient 
Quest  (poems);  The  Azure  Rose;  Our  Navy  at  Work;  Victorious. 

King,  Basil   130 

Author  of:  Griselda;  Let  Not  Man  Put  Asunder;  In  the  Garden 
of  Charity;  The  Steps  of  Honor;  The  Giant's  Strength;  Inner 
Shrine;  Wild  Olive;  Street  Called  Straight;  The  Way  Home;  The 
Letter  of  the  Contract;  The  Side  of  the  Angels;  The  Lifted  Veil; 
The  High  Heart;  The  City  of  Comrades;  The  Abolishing  of  Death. 

LeGallienne,   Richard    133 

Author  of:  My  Ladies'  Sonnets;  Volumes  in  Folio;  George  Meredith; 
The  Book-Bills  of  Narcissus;  English  Poems;  The  Religion  of  a 
Literary  Man;  Prose  Fancies;  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  and  Other 
Poems;  Retrospective  Reviews;  Prose  Fancies,  2d  series;  The  Quest 
of  the  Golden  Girl;  If  I  Were  God;  Omar  Khayyam,  a  Paraphrase; 
The  Romance  of  Zion  Chapel;  Young  Lives;  Worshipper  of  the 
Image;  Travels  in  England;  The  Beautiful  Lie  of  Rome;  Rudyard 
Kipling,  a  Criticism;  The  Life  Romantic;  Sleeping  Beauty;  Mr.  Sun 
and  Mrs.  Moon;  Perseus  and  Andromeda;  An  Old  Country  House; 
Odes  from  the  Divan  of  Hafiz;  Painted  Shadows;  Little  Dinners 
with  the  Sphinx;  Love  Letters  of  the  King;  Omar  Repentant;  New 
Poems;  Attitudes  and  Avowals;  October  Vagabonds;  Orestes,  a 
tragedy;  Loves  of  the  Poets;  Maker  of  Rainbows;  Highway  to  Happi 
ness;  Lonely  Dancer;  Vanishing  Roads  and  Other  Essays;  Modern 
Book  of  English  Verse;  Pieces  of  Eight. 

Lessing,  Bruno    (Rudolph  Block)    136 

Author  of:    Children  of  Men;  With  the  Best  Intentions;  Lapidowitz. 

Lewis,    Sinclair    138 

Author  of:  Our  Mr.  Wrenn;  The  Trail  of  the  Hawk;  The  Job; 
The  Innocents;  Free  Air;  Hike  and  the  Aeroplane;  Main  Street; 
Plays :  Hobohemia. 

Libbey,  Laura  Jean 139 

Author  of:  Lovers  Once,  But  Strangers  Now;  That  Pretty  Young 
Girl;  Miss  Middleton's  Lover;  Olive's  Courtship;  When  His  Love 
Grew  Cold;  etc.,  etc.,  etc. 

Lincoln,  Joseph  C 143 

Author 

Mr. 

Keziah 

Woman 

Patients;   Cap'n  Dan's   Daughter;   Kent  Knowles;  "Quahaug";  Thank- 

ful's  Inheritance;   Mary   Gusta;   Extricating  Obadiah;    Shavings. 

xiii 


LIST  OF  AUTHORS 


Litchfield,  Grace  Denio  145 

Author  of:  Only  an  Incident;  The  Knight  of  the  Black  Forest;  Criss- 
Cross;  A  Hard  Won  Vietory;  Little  Venice;  Little  He  and  She; 
Mimosa  Leaves;  In  the  Crucible;  The  Moving  Finger  Writes;  Vita; 
The  Letter  D.;  The  Supreme  Gift;  Narcissus;  Baldur  the  Beautiful; 
The  Burning  Question;  Collected  Poems;  The  Song  of  the  Sirens. 

Long,   John   Luther 146  • 

Author  of:  Madam  Butterfly;  Miss  Cherry-Blossom  of  Tokyo;  The 
Fox- Woman;  The  Prince  of  Illusion;  Naughty  Nan;  Little  Miss  Joy- 
Sing;  Sixty  Jane;  Heimweh,  and  Other  Stories;  Billy  Boy;  The  Way 
of  the  Gods;  Felice.  Plays:  Madam  Butterfly;  The  Darling  of  the 
Gods  (with  David  Belasco) ;  Adrea;  The  Dragon  Fly  (with  E.  C. 
Carpenter);  Dolce;  Kassa;  Baby  Grand;  War — or  What  Happens 
When  One  Loves  One's  Enemy;  Lady  Betty  Martingale;  Billy  Boy; 
Yo-Nennen  (with  Mr.  Leps) ;  Gar-Anlaf  (with  same);  The  Song  of 
Times  (with  Dr.  Parker).  Operas:  Andon  (with  Mr.  Leps)  Hosni- 
San  (with  same). 

Lynch,  Gertrude 151 

Author  of:    Fighting  Chance;  The  Wanderers;   Winds  of  the  World. 

Macfarlane,  Peter  Clark 154 

Author  of:  The  Quest  of  the  Yellow  Pearl;  The  Centurion's  Story; 
Those  Who  Have  Come  Back;  Held  to  Answer;  The  Crack  in  the 
Bell;  Exploits  of  Bilge  and  Ma. 

MacGrath,  Harold  159 

Author  of:  Arms  and  the  Woman;  The  Puppet  Crown;  The  Grey 
Cloak;  The  Man  on  the  Box;  The  Princess  Elopes;  Enchantment; 
Hearts  and  Masks;  Half  a  Rogue;  The  Watteau  Shepherdess 
(operetta);  The  Best  Man;  The  Enchanted  Hat;  The  Lure  of  the 
Mask;  The  Goose  Girl;  A  Splendid  Hazard;  The  Carpet  from  Bagdad; 
Place  of  Honeymoons;  Parrot  &  Co.;  Deuces  Wild;  Adventures  of 
Kathlyn;  Million  Dollar  Mystery;  Pidgin  Island;  Voice  in  the  Fog; 
The  Luck  of  the  Irish;  Girl  in  His  House;  Private  Wire  to  Washing 
ton;  Yellow  Typhoon;  Man  With  Three  Names. 

MacKaye,  Percy   160 

Author  of:  The  Canterbury  Pilgrims;  Fenris  the  Wolf;  Jeanne  d'Arc; 
Sappho  and  Phaon;  The  Scarecrow;  Lincoln  Centenary  Ode;  Mater; 
The  Playhouse  and  the  Play;  Poems;  A  Garland  to  Sylvia;  Anti- 
Matrimony;  To-morrow;  Yankee  Fantasies;  The  Civic  Theatre; 
Uriel  and  Other  Poems;  Sinbad  the  Sailor;  Sanctuary;  St.  Louis; 
The  Immigrants;  A  Thousand  Years  Ago;  The  Present  Hour;  The 
New  Citizenship;  A  Substitute  for  War;  Poems  and  Plays;  Caliban; 
American  Conservation  Hymn;  Community  Drama;  The  Evergreen 
Tree;  The  Roll  Call;  Washington;  The  Will  of  Song  (with  Harry 
Barnhart);  Rip  Van  Winkle. 


XIV 


LIST  OF  AUTHORS 


Marden,  Orison  Swett 163 

Author  of:  Pushing  to  the  Front;  Rising  in  the  World;  How  to 
Succeed;  Success;  The  Secret  of  Achievement;  Character  the  Grandest 
Thing  in  the  World;  Cheerfulness  as  a  Life  Power;  The  Hour  of 
Opportunity;  Good  Manners  and  Success;  Winning  Out;  Elements  of 
Business  Success;  Talks  with  Great  Workers;  How  They  Succeeded; 
Economy;  An  Iron  Will;  Stepping  Stones;  The  Young  Man  Entering 
Business;  Stories  from  Life;  The  Making  of  a  Man;  Choosing  a 
Career;  Every  Man  a  King;  The  Power  of  Personality;  Success 
Nuggets;  The  Optimistic  Life;  He  Can  Who  Thinks  He  Can;  Why 
Grow  Old?;  Peace,  Power  and  Plenty;  Do  It  To  a  Finish;  Not  the 
Salary  But  the  Opportunity;  Getting  On;  Be  Good  to  Yourself;  The 
Miracle  of  Right  Thought;  Self  Investment;  The  Joys  of  Living; 
The  Exceptional  Employee;  The  Progressive  Business  Man;  Training 
for  Efficiency;  Keeping  Fit;  I  Had  a  Friend;  Hints  for  Young 
Writers;  The  Crime  of  Silence;  Woman  and  Home;  Making  Life  a 
Masterpiece;  The  Victorious  Attitude;  Selling  Things;  Everybody 
Ahead;  How  to  Get  What  You  Want;  Love's  Way. 

Martin,  George  Madden 166 

Author  of:  Emmy  Lou-— Her  Book  and  Heart;  The  House  of  Fulfill 
ment;  Abbie  Ann;  Letitia — Nursery  Corps,  U.  S.  A.;  Selina;  Emmy 
Lou's  Road  to  Grace;  A  Warwickshire  Lad. 

McCall,  Sidney  (Mrs.  Mary  McNeill  Fenollosa) 168 

Author  of:  Out  of  the  Nest;  A  Flight  of  Verses;  Children's  Verses 
on  Japanese  Subjects;  The  Dragon  Painter;  Truth  Dexter;  The 
Breath  of  the  Gods;  Red  Horse  Hill;  Blossoms  from  a  Japanese 
Garden;  The  Stirrup  Latch;  Christopher  Laird. 

McCutcheon,  George  Barr  171 

Author  of:  Graustark;  Castle  Craneycrow;  The  Sherrods;  Brewster's 
Millions;  The  Day  of  the  Dog;  Beverly  of  Graustark;  Nedra;  Purple 
Parasol;  Cowardice  Court;  Jane  Cable;  The  Flyers;  The  Daughter 
of  Anderson  Crow;  The  Husbands  of  Edith;  The  Man  from  Brodney's; 
The  Alternative;  Truxton  King;  The  Butterfly  Man;  The  Rose  in  the 
Ring;  What's-His-Name;  Mary  Midthorne;  Her  Weight  in  Gold;  The 
Hollow  of  Her  Hand;  A  Fool  and  His  Money;  Black  is  White;  The 
Prince  of  Graustark;  Mr.  Single;  From  the  House  Tops;  The  Light 
That  Lies;  Green  Fancy;  Shot  With  Crimson;  The  City  of  Masks. 

Meyer,  Annie  Nathan   174 

Author  of:  Woman's  Work  in  America;  Helen  Brent,  M.D.;  My 
Park  Book;  Robert  Annys;  The  Dominant  Sex;  The  Dreamer. 

Miller,  Alice  Duer 177 

Author  of:  The  Modern  Obstacle;  Calderon's  Prisoner;  Less  Than 
Kin;  Blue  Arch;  Are  Women  People;  The  Charm  School. 

Moffett,    Cleveland    178 

Author  of:  Real  Detective  Stories;  Careers  of  Danger  and  Daring; 
A  King  in  Rags;  The  Battle;  Through  the  Wall;  The  Bishop's  Purse; 
The  Mysterious  Card;  The  Land  of  Mystery;  The  Conquest  of 
America;  How  to  Live  Long  and  Love  Long;  The  War  Beautiful; 
Possessed;  also  prose  poems:  A  Woman's  Breed,  The  Litany  of  the 
Men;  A  Vision  of  Christmas;  Glorious  France.  Plays:  Money  Talks; 
Playing  the  Game;  The  Battle;  For  Better  for  Worse;  Greater  Than 
the  Law. 

XV 


LIST  OF  AUTHORS 

PAGE 

Mumford,  Ethel  Watts  180 

Author  of:  Whitewash;  Out  of  the  Ashes;  The  Cynic's  Calendars; 
The  Hundred  Love  Songs  of  Kamal. 

Nicholson,  Meredith 181 

Author  of:  Short  Flights  (poems);  The  Hoosiers;  The  Main  Chance; 
Zelda  Dameron;  The  House  of  a  Thousand  Candles;  Poems;  The  Port 
of  Missing  Men;  Rosalind  at  Red  Gate;  The  Little  Brown  Jug  at 
Kildare;  The  Lords  of  High  Decision;  The  Siege  of  the  Seven 
Suitors;  A  Hoosier  Chronicle;  The  Provincial  American;  Otherwise 
Phyllis;  The  Poet;  The  Proof  of  the  Pudding;  The  Madness  of  May; 
A  Reversible  Santa  Claus;  The  Valley  of  Democracy;  Lady  Lark 
spur;  Blacksheep!  BlacksheepI 

Norris,  Charles  G 183 

Author  of:    The  Amateur;  Salt;  Brass. 

Norris,  Kathleen   184 

Author  of:  Mother;  The  Rich  Mrs.  Burgoyne;  Poor  Dear  Margaret 
Kirby;  "Saturday's  Child";  The  Story  of  Julia  Page;  The  Heart 
of  Rachael;  Martie,  the  Unconquered;  Undertow;  Josslyn's  Wife; 
Sisters. 

Osborne,  William  Hamilton 185 

Author  of:  The  Red  Mouse;  The  Running  Fight;  Catspaw;  Blue 
Buckle;  Boomerang;  Neal  of  the  Navy  (moving  picture  serial);  How 
to  Make  Your  Will. 

Payne,    Will 188 

Author  of:  Jerry  the  Dreamer;  The  Money  Captain;  The  Story  of 
Eva;  On  Fortune's  Road;  Mr.  Salt;  When  Love  Speaks;  The  Auto 
matic  Capitalist;  The  Losing  Game. 

Pendexter,  Hugh  190 

Author  of:  Tiberius  Smith;  Camp  and  Trail  Series;  The  Young 
Trappers;  Along  the  Coast  series. 

Pollock,  Channing 192 

Author  of:  Behold  the  Man;  Stage  Stories;  The  Footlights — Fore  and 
Aft.  Plays:  A  Game  of  Hearts;  The  Pit  (dramatization);  Napoleon 
the  Great;  In  the  Bishop's  Carriage;  The  Little  Gray  Lady;  Clothes 
(in  collaboration  with  Avery  Hopwood) ;  The  Secret  Orchard;  The 
Traitor;  Such  a  Little  Queen;  The  Inner  Shrine;  The  Red  Widow 
(with  Rennold  Wolf) ;  Hell  (with  Rennold  Wolf) ;  My  Best  Girl  (with 
Rennold  Wolf) ;  The  Beauty  Shop  and  Her  Little  Highness  (with 
Rennold  Wolf);  A  Perfect  Lady  (with  Rennold  Wolf);  The  Grass 
Widow  (with  Rennold  Wolf);  Roads  of  Destiny;  The  Crowded  Hour 
(with  Edgar  Selwyn) ;  A  Room  at  the  Ritz. 

Poole,  Ernest 194 

Author  of:  The  Harbor;  His  Family;  His  Second  Wife.  Plays: 
None  So  Blind;  A  Man's  Friends. 

xvi 


LIST  OF  AUTHORS 


Pulver,  Mary  Brecht  195 

Author  of:  The  Spring  Lady.  Stories:  The  Path  of  Glory;  The 
Long  Carry;  The  Pomegranate  Coat;  Fuller  Brothers;  The  Man 
Hater,  etc. 


Putnam,  Nina  Wilcox 197 

Author  of:  In  Search  of  Arcady;  The  Impossible  Boy;  The  Little 
Missioner;  Orthodoxy;  Adam's  Garden;  When  the  Highbrow  Joined 
the  Outfit;  Esmeralda;  Sunny  Bunny;  Winkle  Twinkle  and  Lollypops; 
Believe  You  Me. 


Raine,   William  MacLeod    200 

Author  of:  A  Daughter  of  Raasay;  Wyoming;  Ridgway  of  Montana; 
Bucky  O'Connor;  A  Texas  Ranger;  Mavericks;  Brand  Blotters; 
Crooked  Trails  and  Straight;  The  Vision  Splendid;  The  Pirate  of 
Panama;  A  Daughter  of  the  Dons;  The  Highgrader;  Steve  Yeager; 
The  Yukon  Trail;  The  Sheriff's  Son;  A  Man  Four  Square;  Oh 
You  Tex;  The  Kids'  Judge  (play,  with  Arthur  Chapman). 


Read,  Opie 201 

Author  of:  Len  Gansett;  A  Kentucky  Colonel;  Emmett  Bonlore;  A 
Tennessee  Judge;  Wives  of  the  Prophet;  The  Jucklins;  My  Young 
Master;  An  Arkansas  Planter;  Bolanyo;  Old  Ebenezer;  Waters  of 
Carney  Fork;  On  the  Suwanee  River;  A  Yankee  from  the  West; 
In  the  Alamo;  Judge  Elbridge;  The  Carpetbagger  (with  Frank  Pixley) ; 
The  Starbucks;  An  American  in  New  York;  Son  of  the  Swordmaker; 
Old  Lim  Jucklin;  "Turkey  Egg"  Griffin;  The  Mystery  of  Margaret. 


Reese,   Lowell   Otus 206 

Author  of:  (Stories)  Grandpa  Makes  Him  Sick;  Kentucky  Turns; 
Constable  of  Copper  Sky;  Behind  the  Velvet;  The  Bachelor;  The 
Sad  Milk  Bottles,  etc. 


Rice,  Alice  Hegan   209 

Author  of:  Mrs.  Wiggs  of  the  Cabbage  Patch;  Lovey  Mary;  Sandy; 
Captain  June;  Mr.  Opp;  A  Romance  of  Billy  Goat  Hill;  The  Honor 
able  Percival;  Calvary  Alley;  Miss  Mink's  Soldier  and  Other 
Stories. 


Rice,  Cale  Young 211 

Author  of:  Jurgend.  Poems:  From  Dusk  to  Dusk;  With  Omar; 
Song-Surf;  Nirvana  Days;  Many  Gods;  Far  Quests;  At  the  World's 
Heart;  Earth  and  New  Earth;  Trails  Sunward;  Wraiths  and  Reali 
ties;  Songs  to  A.  H.  R.;  Plays:  Charles  di  Tocca;  David;  Yolanda  of 
Cyprus;  A  Night  in  Avignon;  An  Immortal  Lure;  Porzia. 


XV11 


LIST  OF  AUTHORS 

PAGE 

Richards,  Laura  E 212 

Author  of:  Sketches  and  Scraps;  Five  Mice;  Joyous  Story  of  Toto; 
Toto's  Merry  Winter;  Queen  Hildegarde;  My  Nursery;  Captain  Jan 
uary;  Hildegarde's  Holiday;  Hildegarde's  Home;  Melody;  When  I  Was 
Your  Age;  Glimpses  of  the  French  Court;  Marie;  Hildegarde's  Neigh 
bors;  Nautilus;  Jim  of  Hellas;  Narcissa;  Isla  Heron;  Some  Say; 
Hildegarde's  Harvest;  Three  Margarets;  Margaret  Montfort;  Love 
and  Rocks;  Rosin  the  Beau;  Peggy;  Rita;  For  Tommy;  Snow  White; 
Quicksilver  Sue;  Fernley  House;  Geoffrey  Strong;  Mrs.  Tree;  The 
Hurdy  Gurdy;  The  Green  Satin  Gown;  Five  Minute  Stories;  More  Five 
Minute  Stories;  The  Golden  Windows;  The  Merry  weathers ;  The  Arm 
strongs;  Mrs.  Tree's  Will;  The  Piccolo;  Letters  and  Journals  of  Samuel 
Gridley  Howe;  Vol.  I.,  The  Greek  Revolution  (edited) ;  The  Silver 
Crown;  Grandmother;  The  Wooing  of  Calvin  Parks;  Letters  and  Jour 
nals  of  Samuel  Gridley  Howe,  Vol.  II.,  The  Servant  of  Humanity; 
Florence  Nightingale;  Up  to  Calvin's;  A  Happy  Little  Time;  Two 
Noble  Lives;  Aboard  the  Mary  Sands;  Miss  Jimmy;  The  Little  Master; 
Three-Minute  Stories;  The  Pig  Brother  Play  Book;  Life  of  Julia  Ward 
Howe  (with  Maud  Howe  Elliott);  Fairy  Operettas;  Life  of  Elizabeth 
Fry;  Pippin;  Life  of  Abigail  Adams;  "To  Arms!"  (War  songs);  A 
Daughter  of  Jehu;  Life  of  Joan  of  Arc. 

Richmond,  Grace  S 213 

Author  of:  The  Indifference  of  Juliet;  The  Second  Violin;  With 
Juliet  in  England;  Around  the  Corner  in  Gay  Street;  On  Christmas 
Day  in  the  Morning;  A  Court  of  Inquiry;  On  Christmas  Day  in  the 
Evening;  Red  Pepper  Burns;  Strawberry  Acres;  Mrs.  Red  Pepper; 
The  Twenty-fourth  of  June;  Under  the  Country  Sky;  Red  Pepper's 
Patients;  The  Brown  Study;  Red  and  Black. 

Rideout,  Henry  Milner  216 

Author  of:  Letters  of  Thomas  Gray;  Tennyson's  The  Princess  (edited 
with  C.  T.  Copeland) ;  Freshman  English  and  Theme  Correcting  at 
Harvard  College  (with  C.  T.  Copeland);  Beached  Keels;  The  Siamese 
Cat;  Admiral's  Light;  Dragon's  Blood;  Selections  from  Wordsworth, 
Byron,  etc.,  (with  C.  T.  Copeland);  The  Twisted  Foot;  William 
Jones,  a  Memoir;  White  Tiger;  The  Far  Cry;  The  Key  of  the  Fields; 
Tin  Cowrie  Dass. 

Rives,  Amelie    (Princess  Troubetskoy) 217 

Author  of:  The  Quick  or  the  Dead;  A  Brother  to  Dragons;  Virginia 
of  Virginia;  Herod  and  Mariamne;  Witness  of  the  Sun;  According 
to  St.  John;  Barbara  Dering;  Athelwold;  Damsel  Errant;  Meriel; 
Tanis;  Selene;  Augustine  the  Man;  The  Golden  Rose;  Trix  and  Over- 
the-Moon;  Pan's  Mountain;  Hidden  House;  World's  End;  Shadows 
of  Flames;  The  Ghost  Garden.  Plays:  The  Fear  Market;  Allegiance. 

Roche,  Arthur   Somers 218 

Author  of:  Loot;  Plunder;  The  Sport  of  Kings;  Ransom;  The  Eyes 
of  the  Blind;  Find  the  Woman.  Co-author  of  play  The  Scrap  of  Paper. 

Rowland,  Henry  C. 220 

Author  of:  Sea  Scamps;  To  Windward;  The  Wanderers;  In  the 
Shadow;  The  Mountain  of  Fears;  The  Countess  Diane;  Germaine; 
Across  Europe  in  a  Motor  Boat;  In  the  Service  of  the  Princess; 
The  Magnet;  The  Apple  of  Discord;  The  Closing  Net;  The  Sultana; 
Filling  His  Own  Shoes;  Pearl  Island. 

xviii 


LIST  OF  AUTHORS 


Seton,  Ernest  Thompson   223 

Author  of:  Art  Anatomy  of  Animals;  Wild  Animals  I  Have  Known; 
The  Trail  of  the  Sandhill  Stag;  The  Biography  of  a  Grizzly;  Wild 
Animal  Play  for  Children;  Lobo,  Rag  and  Vixen;  Lives  of  the 
Hunted;  Pictures  of  Wild  Animals;  Krag  and  Johnny  Bear;  Two 
Little  Savages;  Monarch,  the  Big  Bear;  Woodmyth  and  Fable;  Animal 
Heroes;  The  Birchbark  Roll;  Natural  History  of  the  Ten  Command 
ments;  Biography  of  a  Silver  Fox;  Life-Histories  of  Northern  Animals; 
Scouting  for  Boys;  Rolf  in  the  Woods;  The  Arctic  Prairies;  Forester's 
Manual;  Woodcraft  and  Indian  Lore;  Wild  Animals  at  Home;  Manual 
of  Woodcraft  Indians;  Preacher  of  Cedar  Mountain;  Wild  Animals' 
Ways;  Woodcraft  Boys;  Woodcraft  Girls;  Sign  Talk. 

Sholl,  Ann  McClure 224 

Author  of:  The  Law  of  Life;  The  Port  of  Storms;  The  Greater 
Love;  Blue  Blood  and  Red;  Carmichael;  This  Way  Out;  The 
Ancient  Journey;  Fairy  Tales  of  Weir. 

Steffens,  Lincoln    226 

Author  of:  The  Shame  of  the  Cities;  The  Struggle  for  Self- 
Government;  TJpbuilders;  The  Least  of  These. 

Street,  Julian   226 

Author  of:  My  Enemy  the  Motor;  The  Need  of  Change;  Paris 
a  la  Carte;  Ship-Bored;  The  Goldfish;  Welcome  to  Our  City;  Abroad 
at  Home;  The  Most  Interesting  American;  American  Adventures; 
After  Thirty.  Plays:  The  Country  Cousin  (with  Booth  Tarkington). 

Stringer,  Arthur   230 

Author  of:  Watchers  of  Twilight;  Pauline  and  Other  Poems; 
Epigrams;  A  Study  in  King  Lear;  The  Loom  of  Destiny;  The 
Silver  Poppy;  Lonely  O'Malley;  Hephaestus  and  Other  Poems;  The 
Wire  Tappers;  Phantom  Wires;  The  Occasional  Offender;  The 
Woman  in  the  Rain;  Under  Groove;  Irish  Poems;  Open  Water;  Gun 
Runner;  Shadow;  Prairie  Wife;  Hand  of  Peril;  Door  of  Dread; 
House  of  Intrigue;  Man  Who  Couldn't  Sleep;  Prairie  Mother. 

Tarbell,  Ida  M 234 

Author  of:  Short  Life  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte;  Life  of  Madame 
Roland;  Early  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln  (with  J.  McCan  Davis); 
Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln;  History  of  Standard  Oil  Co.;  He  Knew 
Lincoln;  Father  Abraham;  The  Tariff  in  Our  Times;  The  Business 
of  Being  a  Woman;  The  Ways  of  Women;  New  Ideals  in  Business; 
The  Rising  of  the  Tide;  In  Lincoln's  Chair. 

Tarkington,  Booth 237 

Author  of:  The  Gentleman  from  Indiana;  Monsieur  Beaucaire; 
The  Two  Vanrevels;  Cherry;  In  the  Arena;  The  Conquest  of  Canaan; 
The  Beautiful  Lady;  His  Own  People;  Guest  of  Quesnay;  Beasley's 
Christmas  Party;  Beauty  and  the  Jacobin;  The  Flirt;  Penrod;  The 
Turmoil;  Penrod  and  Sam;  Seventeen;  The  Magnificent  Ambersons; 
Ramsey  Milholland.  Plays:  Monsieur  Beaucaire  (with  E.  G.  Suther 
land)  ;  The  Man  From  Home  (with  Harry  Leon  Wilson) ;  Cameo 
Kirby;  Your  Humble  Servant;  Springtime;  Getting  a  Polish;  Mister 
Antonio;  The  Gibson  Upright;  Up  From  Nowhere;  Clarence;  The 
Country  Cousin  (with  Julian  Street) 

xix 


LIST  OF  AUTHORS 


Thompson,    Maravene    239 

Author  of:  No  Middle  Ground;  Under  Twenty;  The  Yellow  Flower; 
The  Woman's  Law;  Persuasive  Peggy.  Play:  The  Net. 

Tompkins,  Juliet  Wilbor   241 

Author  of:  Dr.  Ellen;  Open  House;  The  Top  of  the  Morning; 
Mothers  and  Fathers;  Pleasures  and  Palaces;  Ever  After;  Diantha; 
The  Seed  of  the  Righteous;  At  the  Sign  of  the  Oldest  House;  A  Girl 
Named  Mary;  The  Starling. 

Towne,   Charles   Hanson 243 

Author  of:  The  Quiet  Singer  and  Other  Poems;  Manhattan,  a  Poem; 
Youth,  and  Other  Poems;  Beyond  the  Stars,  and  Other  Poems;  To 
day  and  To-morrow,  and  Other  Poems;  The  Tumble  Man  (with  Hy. 
Mayer);  Jolly  Haunts  with  Jim;  Autumn  Loiterers;  Shaking  Hands 
With  England;  A  World  of  Windows. 

Train,    Arthur 245 

Author  of:  McAllister  and  His  Double;  The  Prisoner  at  the  Bar; 
True  Stories  of  Crime;  The  Butler's  Story;  Mortmain;  Confessions  of 
Artemus  Quibble;  C.  Q.,  or  In  the  Wireless  House;  Courts,  Criminals 
and  the  Comorra;  The  Goldfish;  The  Man  Who  Rocked  the  Earth 
("with  Robert  Williams  Wood);  The  World  and  Thomas  Kelly;  The 
Earthquake;  Tutt  and  Mr.  Tutt. 

Vance,  Louis  Joseph   246 

Author  of:  Terence  O'Rourke,  Gentleman  Adventurer;  The  Private 
War;  The  Brass  Bowl;  The  Black  Bag;  The  Bronze  Bell;  The  Pool 
of  Flame;  The  Fortune  Hunter;  No  Man's  Land;  Cynthia-of-the- 
Minute;  The  Bandbox;  The  Destroying  Angel;  The  Day  of  Days; 
Joan  Thursday;  The  Lone  Wolf;  Sheep's  Clothing;  Nobody;  The  False 
Faces;  Beau  Revel;  The  Dark  Mirror. 

Van  Rensselaer,  Mrs.  Schuyler   251 

Author  of:  Henry  Hobson  Richardson  and  His  Works;  English 
Cathedrals;  Six  Portraits;  Art  Out  of  Doors;  Should  We  Ask  for 
Suffrage?;  One  Man  Who  Was  Content;  Niagara,  a  Description; 
History  of  the  City  of  New  York  in  the  Seventeenth  Century;  Poems. 

Wagstaff,  Blanche  Shoemaker    253 

Author  of:  (Poems)  Song  of  Youth;  Woven  of  Dreams;  Atys; 
Alcestis;  Eris;  Narcissus;  The  Book  of  Love;  Leaves  in  the  Wind; 
(songs)  Mother  Adoration;  I  Never  Knew;  You  Took  Away  the 
Spring;  Hope;  Elegy.  Play:  Alcestis. 


xx 


LIST  OF  AUTHORS 


Wells,  Carolyn 255 

Author  of:  At  the  Sign  of  the  Sphinx;  The  Jingle  Book;  The  Story 
of  Betty;  Folly  in  Fairyland;  A  Nonsense  Anthology;  A  Phenomenal 
Fauna;  Eight  Girls  and  a  Dog;  The  Pete  and  Polly  Stories;  Folly 
in  the  Forest;  The  Gordon  Elopement;  A  Parody  Anthology;  The 
Staying  Guest;  A  Matrimonial  Bureau;  A  Satire  Anthology;  The 
Rubaiyat  of  a  Motor  Car;  Dorrance  Doings;  A  Whimsey  Anthology; 
At  the  Sign  of  the  Sphinx,  Vol.  II.;  Rainy  Day  Diversions;  Emily 
Emmins  Papers;  Fluffy  Ruffles;  The  Carolyn  Wells  Year  Book;  The 
Happy  Chaps;  Rubaiyat  of  Bridge;  The  Clue;  Seven  Ages  of  Child 
hood;  Pleasant  Day  Diversions;  (series)  The  Patty  Books;  The 
Marjorie  Books;  Dick  and  Dolly;  The  Gold  Bag;  A  Chain  of  Evi 
dence;  The  Lovers'  Baedaker;  The  Maxwell  Mystery;  The  Read-Out- 
Loud  Books;  Anybody  But  Anne;  The  White  Alley;  Two  Little 
Women;  Technique  of  the  Mystery  Story;  Jolly  Plays  for  Holidays; 
Curved  Blades;  Bride  of  a  Moment;  Baubles;  Faulkner's  Folly;  Doris 
of  Dobbs  Ferry;  Mark  of  Cain;  Vicky  Van;  The  Room  with  the 
Tassels;  The  Diamond  Pin;  The  Man  Who  Fell  Through  the  Earth; 
Raspberry  Jam,  etc.,  etc.,  etc. 

White,  Stewart  Edward 257 

Author  of:  Westerners;  Claim  Jumpers;  The  Blazed  Trail;  Con 
juror's  House;  The  Forest;  The  Magic  Forest;  The  Silent  Places; 
The  Mountains;  Blazed  Trail  Stories;  The  Pass;  The  Mystery  (with 
Samuel  Hopkins  Adams);  Arizona  Nights;  Camp  and  Trail;  The 
Riverman;  The  Rules  of  the  Game;  The  Cabin;  The  Adventures  of 
Bobby  Orde;  The  Land  of  Footprints;  African  Camp  Fires;  Gold; 
The  Rediscovered  Country;  The  Gray  Dawn;  The  Leopard  Woman; 
Simba;  The  Forty-Niners. 

White,  William  Allen  260 

Author  of:  The  Real  Issue  and  Other  Stories;  The  Court  of  Boy- 
ville;  Stratagems  and  Spoils;  In  Our  Town;  A  Certain  Rich  Man; 
The  Old  Order  Changeth;  God's  Puppets;  In  the  Heart  of  a  Fool; 
The  Martial  Adventures  of  Henry  and  Me. 

Widdemer,   Margaret 260 

Author  of:  The  Rose-Garden  Husband;  Winona  of  the  Camp  Fire; 
Factories,  with  Other  Lyrics;  Why  Not?;  The  Wishing-Ring  Man; 
Winona  of  Camp  Karonya;  Winona's  War  Farm;  The  Old  Road  to 
Paradise;  You're  Only  Young  Once;  The  Board  Walk. 

Wiggin,  Kate  Douglas 262 

Author  of:  The  Birds'  Christmas  Carol;  The  Story  of  Patsy;  A 
Summer  in  a  Canon;  Timothy's  Quest;  The  Story  Hour,  and  Children's 
Rights  (with  Nora  A.  Smith);  A  Cathedral  Courtship;  Penelope's 
English  Experiences;  Polly  Oliver's  Problem;  The  Village  Watch 
Tower;  Froebel's  Gifts  (with  Nora  A.  Smith);  Froebel's  Occupations; 
Kindergarten  Principles  and  Practice;  Nine  Love  Songs  and  a  Carol; 
Marm  Lisa;  Penelope's  Progress;  Penelope's  Experiences  in  Ireland; 
The  Diary  of  a  Goose  Girl;  Rebecca;  The  Affair  at  the  Inn  (collabora 
tion);  Rose  o'  the  River;  New  Chronicles  of  Rebecca;  The  Old  Pea- 
body  Pew;  Susanna  and  Sue;  Mother  Carey's  Chickens;  The  Story 
of  Waitstill  Baxter.  Plays:  Rebecca  of  Sunnybrook  Farm;  Mother 
Carey's  Chickens;  The  Old  Peabody  Pew;  Bluebeard;  Penelope's 
Postscripts. 


LIST  OF  AUTHORS 


Wilkins,   Mary  E 265 

Author  of:  A  Humble  Romance;  A  New  England  Nun;  Young 
Lucretia;  Jane  Field;  Giles  Corey;  Pembroke;  Madelon;  Jerome; 
Silence;  Evelina's  Garden;  The  Love  of  Parson  Lord;  The  Heart's 
Highway;  The  Portion  of  Labor;  Understudies;  Six  Trees;  The  Wind 
in  the  Rose  Bush;  The  Givers;  Doc  Gordon;  By  the  Light  of  the  Soul; 
Shoulders  of  Atlas;  Winning  Lady;  Green  Door;  Butterfly  House; 
Yates  Pride;  Copy-Cat  and  Other  Stories;  The  Jamesons;  People  of 
Our  Neighborhood. 

Wilkinson,  Marguerite    267 

Author  of:  In  Vivid  Gardens;  By  a  Western  Wayside;  The  Passing 
of  Mars  (play);  Golden  Songs  of  the  Golden  State;  New  Voices. 

Williams,  Ben  Ames   269 

Author  of:  All  the  Brothers  Were  Valiant;  The  Sea  Bride;  The 
Great  Accident. 

Wilson,  John  Fleming   . 270 

Author  of:  The  Land  Claimers;  Across  the  Latitudes;  The  Man 
Who  Came  Back;  The  Princess  of  Sorry  Valley;  Tad  Sheldon  and  His 
Boy  Scouts;  The  Master  Key. 

Wister,    Owen     273 

Author  of:  The  Dragon  of  Wantley — His  Tail;  Red  Men  and  White; 
Lin  McLean;  The  Jimmy  John  Boss;  U.  S.  Grant,  a  Biography;  The 
Virginian;  Philosophy  4;  Journey  in  Search  of  Christmas;  Lady  Balti 
more;  The  Simple  Spelling  Bee;  Mother;  The  Seven  Ages  of  Wash 
ington;  Members  of  the  Family;  The  Pentecost  of  Calamity. 

Witwer,  H.   C 274 

Author  of:  From  Baseball  to  Boches;  A  Smile  a  Minute;  Alex  the 
Great. 

Wood,  Clement  276 

Author  of:  Mountain.  Poems:  Glad  of  Earth;  The  Earth  Turns 
South;  Jehovah. 

Woodrow,  Mrs.  Wilson   279 

Author  of:  The  Bird  of  Time;  The  New  Missioner;  The  Silver 
Butterfly;  The  Beauty;  Sally  Salt;  The  Black  Pearl;  The  Hornets' 

Nest. 

Woodruff,  Anne  Helena  281 

Author  of:  Betty  and  Bob;  The  Pond  in  the  Marshy  Meadow;  Three 
Boys  and  a  Girl. 

Wright,   Harold   Bell    283 

Author  of:  That  Printer  of  Udell's;  The  Shepherd  of  the  Hills; 
The  Calling  of  Dan  Matthews;  The  Uncrowned  King;  The  Winning 
of  Barbara  Worth;  Their  Yesterdays;  The  Eyes  of  the  World;  When 
a  Man's  a  Man;  The  Re-Creation  of  Brian  Kent. 

Wyatt,  Edith  Franklin 285 

Author  of:  Every  One  His  Own  Way;  True  Love;  Making  Both 
Ends  Meet;  Great  Companions;  The  Wind  in  the  Corn. 

xxii 


INTRODUCTION 

Fain  had  I  been  formal,  staid.  But  I  find,  upon  re-read 
ing  this  Introduction,  that  my  native  penchant  for  the 
incongruous,  the  perverse,  even  the  sacrilegious,  has 
again  betrayed  me.  My  embarrassment  is  akin  to  that  which 
I  suffered  during  my  first  meeting  with  William  Dean 
Howells,  in  those  wondrous  fin  de  siecle  years  from  which,  as 
K.  F.  G.  says,  anyone  who  was  then  young,  "dates." 

I  was  to  call  with  Frank  Norris.  And  in  view  of  our 
respect  for  the  beloved  Dean  of  American  Letters  (as  well  as 
our  own  importance  as  literary  Lochinvars),  we  agreed  that 
the  occasion  should  be  costumed  de  rigeur.  Many,  many 
years  will  elapse  before  I  forget  the  mordant,  ironic  smile 
with  which,  in  my  room  at  the  Benedick,  Frank  (himself 
always  elegant,  aristocratic)  watched  me  dress,  that  evening. 
Alas,  it  was  not  until  that  memorable  evening  was  half  spent 
that  I  discovered,  horribly,  the  cause  of  his  satanic  mirth. 
It  was  my  wearing,  unwittingly,  over  evening  trousers  and 
waistcoat — a  cutaway  coat! 

A  symbolic  act,  it  must  have  been,  directed  by  the  same 
subconscious  asteistic  sprite  in  me  which  refuses  to  take  any 
thing  too  seriously,  and  has  just  tangled  even  the  dignity  of 
this  salutatory.  And,  since  we  shall  all  be  psycho-analyzed  any 
way,  and  our  secrets  probed,  I  may  venture  as  an  excuse  for 
lack  of  sobriety/the  demoralizing  effect  upon  an  editor  of  so 
rich  and  bizarre  a  display  of  solecisms,  cliches  and  astigmatic 
English  in  the  copy  of  noted  authors  whose  diction  must  of 
course  be  held  sacrosanct.  Selah. 


In  this  book  are  the  fact-stories  of  125  of  the  busiest  men 
and  women  in  the  United  States.  To  have  collected  so  many 
gratuitous  contributions  testifies  perhaps  less  to  the  per 
sistence  of  two  years  of  correspondence  and  entreaty  than  to 
the  worthiness  of  the  cause  for  which  the  book  is  published. 

xxiii 


INTRODUCTION 

The  activities  of  the  Authors'  League  Fund  are  too  little 
known,  however,  even  to  members  of  the  League.  Its  benev 
olence  and  encouragement,  though  large  and  continuous, 
must  of  necessity  remain  of  a  confidential  nature.  But  to 
those  aware  of  the  friendly  help  it  has  given  many  of  our 
fellow  authors  in  time  of  trouble,  it  is  a  work  which  should 
have  the  cordial  and  regular  support  of  every  professional 
writer,  whether  a  member  of  the  League  or  not.  It  offers  an 
opportunity  for  the  finest  spirit  of  craft  fellowship. 

Indeed,  perhaps  one  of  the  secrets  of  the  success  of  this 
collection  is  revealed  in  the  words  of  more  than  one  contribu 
tor,  who  has  breathed  a  jocosely  plaintive  fear  that  he  him 
self  may,  some  time,  be  forced  to  knock  at  the  charitable 
door  of  the  Fund.  A  precarious  business,  the  literary  pro 
fession.  Names,  well-known  names — they  rise,  they  fall — 
disappear.  If  an  author  doesn't  quit  writing  because  he  can 
no  longer  sell  his  work,  he  is  likely  to  cease  because  he  doesn't 
have  to,  any  longer.  It  is  the  latter  reason  that  accounts  for 
the  presence  in  these  pages  of  stories  by  retired  litterateurs — 
gentlemen  farmers,  bankers,  and  coupon-cutters  of  sorts. 

Of  course,  unfortunately,  many  authors — prominent  au 
thors,  even — are  unrepresented  in  this  symposium.  Too 
many,  through  a  lamentable  neglect,  a  lack  of  editorial  per 
spicacity,  or  the  failure  of  the  mails,  have  perhaps  never  re 
ceived  the  editor's  request  to  help  fill  the  book.  But  the  list 
as  it  stands  is  fairly  representative  of  American  Letters.  It 
contains  an  unusually  large  percentage  of  our  good  and  great 
— of  our  best  advertised,  at  any  rate.  For  who  are  good,  and 
who  are  great,  in  these  latter  years  of  monstrous  circulations? 
Would  that  some  hard  determinist  might  invent  a  method 
of  forecasting  the  weather  of  literature  appreciation!  Moi, 
the  only  way  I  can  express  my  opinion  is  to  adapt  the  remark 
of  a  friend  of  mine,  on  his  first  visit  to  New  York — a  truly 
masterly  description  of  the  effect  upon  him  of  the  downtown 
skyscrapers. 


xxiv 


INTRODUCTION 

"Why,  Frank,"  said  he,  "When  I  look  up  at  those  tre 
mendous  great  tall  buildings,  by  god,  Frank,  it  makes  me 
wish  they  were  ten  times  taller!" 

As  a  collection  of  the  confessions  of — dare  I  say  literary 
celebrities? — or,  at  least,  Who's  Whosers — and  I  do  dare 
say  at  least,  that  few  such  collections  have  ever  been  sucher — • 
it  is  a  remarkable  and  stimulating  demonstration  of  candor. 
It  might  even  be  appraised  as  a  valuable  contribution  to  the 
history  of  our  contemporaneous  American  literature.  And 
from  these  humble  beginnings  on  the  road  to  Fame  will 
doubtless  be  drawn  innumerable  moral  precepts  to  inspire — 
or  bore — the  ambitious  neophyte. 

To  the  literary  beginner  of  today  this  volume  will  be, 
it  is  to  be  hoped,  an  encouragement.  Surely  so  many  famous 
story-tellers  have  had  to  submit  their  first  work  so  many 
times  before  acceptance,  that  their  example  points  clearly 
the  lesson  of  persistence.  There  are  exceptions,  to  be  sure, 
where  the  road  to  success  was  amazingly  easy,  and  the  first 
rewards  brilliant.  But  if  some  few  have  escaped  the  Sturm 
and  especially  the  Drang  of  early  struggles,  the  tyro  may 
still  cling  to  Emerson's  law  of  compensation  and  trust  that 
those  who  cheated  hardship  at  the  start  with  prize  stories 
and  editorial  adulation,  may  yet  be  reached  by  an  equaliz 
ing  fate.  They  may  live,  for  instance,  to  see  the  children 
of  their  fancy  butchered  by  the  motion  picture  continuity- 
writer. 

And  as  for  prize  winning — (this  as  priest  to  novitiate)  — 
well,  there  was  once  a  magazine  of  immense  circulation, 
published  in  Boston,  which  offered  a  tremendous  prize  for 
the  best  short  story.  And  after  the  jaded  readers,  half- 
crazed  with  the  perusal  of  thousands  and  thousands  of  medio 
cre  manuscripts,  had  become  almost  comatose,  their  critical 
faculties  paralyzed,  their  minds  dulled,  reading  on,  reading 
on,  to  find  the  needle  in  that  literary  haystack,  one  at  last 
aroused  from  his  lethargy  and  cried,  "Here's  one  with  a  good 
title— 'Mother.'  " 


XXV 


INTRODUCTION 

"Hell !  Give  it  to  'Mother/  "  cried  they  all,  with  a  groan 
of  relief. 

And  to  "Mother"  the  prize  was  given.  And  for  two  years 

thereafter  the  author  of  "Mother"  wrote  in  to  the  Y 

I  mean  that  magazine,  to  ask  why  her  prize  winning  story 
hadn't  been  printed.  It  never  was! 

Fortunate  was  it  for  most  of  our  125,  no  doubt,  that  their 
early  work  never  saw  the  printed  page.  "Pray  that  thy 
dreams  come  true"  says  Muriel  Strode,  "yet  O,  thou  shalt 
pray  well  if  thou  shalt  pray  for  deferred  fulfillment''  For 
nothing  so  fixes  faults,  hampers  growth,  more  than  reward 
that  comes  too  soon.  The  ill-favored  girl  with  brains, 
usually  perfects  herself  in  the  use  of  so  many  weapons  that 
she  can  vanquish  the  beauty  who  has  but  one.  But  the  subject 
is  too  controversial  for  an  editor  to  discuss.  Let  us  leave  it 
to  be  threshed  out  between  those  who  believe  Poeta  nascitur 
non  fit — who  believe  their  first  work  best — who  boast  that 
they  "never  have  changed  a  word" — and  those  who  regard 
writing  as  a  trade  only  to  be  learned  through  hard  apprentice 
ship — the  braggarts  of  the  other  side,  miracles  of  pertinacity 
(or  of  obreption)  who  "rewrite  a  hundred  times." 

The  unexpected  discovery  of  so  many  rivals  of  Daisy 
Ashford  was,  at  first,  somewhat  of  an  embarrassment  to 
the  editor.  A  disturbing  threat  it  was  that  the  book  might, 
after  all,  turn  out  to  be  a  mere  compendium  of  juvenilia. 
To  be  sure,  the  evidence  of  so  prolific  an  army  of  precocities 
might  at  least  settle  the  moot  question  of  the  veracity  of 
Daisy's  authorship.  The  adduced  evidence,  in  fact,  shows 
that  along  with  whooping-cough  and  the  measles,  the  divine 
cacoethes  might  well  be  classed  as  a  children's  disease  in 
America. 

But  alas,  as  a  rule  (since  the  early  MSS  of  A.  D.  M.  is 
not  forthcoming  in  rebuttal),  our  literary  infant  prodigies 
have  not  that  subtle  trick  of  naif  suggestiveness  which  made 
the  young  English  authoress  (and  here  at  last,  we  arrive, 
perhaps  at  the  only  proper  use  of  that  contemned  term)  — 


xxvi 


INTRODUCTION 

where  was  I? — Oh,  yes! — made  "The  Young  Visiters"  so 
sprightly  and  refreshing.  We  have  all  taken  our  Muse, 
even  when  tragic,  au  grand  serieux  as  one  to  be  respected 
according  to  the  canons  of  mid-Victorian — or  let  us,  as  100%, 
say,  rather,  Polkian  propriety.  Normal  pre-adolescence  is 
indubitably,  the  true  Epoch  of  Sensibility. 

And  so,  when  little  Rupert  essays  the  ethical,  and  young 
Geordie  the  didactic,  we  cannot  but  feel  that  although  time 
may  not  have  improved  their  morals,  their  art  has  consider 
ably  mellowed  with  maturity.  Those  who  made  no  attempt 
to  uplift,  but  attacked  the  frankly  melodramatic,  felt  the 
truer  urgency.  It  would  have  been  pleasant  indeed  to  have 
included  the  original  texts  of  such  tales  as  "Panther  Jim's 
Revenge,"  and  "A  Trip  to  the  Moon,"  or  even  "Aliris." 
But  then,  so  many  of  our  most  popular  present-growth  novels 
are  melodramas  of  merely  greater  length,  ambition  and  com 
plexity,  the  avid  reader,  whose  taste  has  here  been  whetted, 
must  be  referred  to  his  favorite  writer's  currently  published 
Old-Maiden  Efforts. 

Do  flappers  and  he-goslings  write  today?  It  is  an  age  of 
precocious  sophistication,  but  less  seldom  than  of  yore,  I 
ween,  does  it  take  form  in  art.  When  our  125  were  children, 
you  know,  it  was  the  age  of  amateur  journalism.  Boys  had 
printing  presses,  young  girls  read  romances,  wrote  poetry. 
Now  they  play  with  automobiles,  aeroplanes  and  wire 
less  telephony.  They  prate  of  inside  baseball  and  athletic 
records,  or  flirt  with  lipsticks  and  sex  problems.  Verily,  in 
the  city,  at  least,  the  home,  as  a  culture  centre  is  almost  ex 
tinct.  The  movies  and  the  magazines  nowadays  seem  to  do 
most  children's  thinking  for  them. 

Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  the  very  multiplicity  of  these  mag 
azines  and  movies  have  so  increased  the  demand  for  material 
that  the  way  to  success  is  far  easier  than  it  was  twenty-five 
years  ago — to  financial  success,  at  least.  The  first  dollar 
bill,  or  the  first  check,  I  fancy,  is  seldom  framed  by  the  young 
author  of  this  year  1921. 


XXVll 


INTRODUCTION 

Quick  work — big  profits!  Is  that  to  be  the  slogan  of 
the  author  of  tomorrow?  It  was  not  like  that  in  the  olden 
time!  In  the  days  here  recorded  the  publication  of  a  story 
by  an  unknown  author  in  a  popular  magazine  was  not 
followed  within  two  days  of  issuance  by  magnificent  tele 
graphed  offers  for  motion  picture  rights.  Writers  then 
climbed  a  long  and  painful  ladder  to  fame.  Now  they 
take  the  elevators.  But  still,  elevators,  you  know,  seldom 
reach  the  roof  where  Fame  sits  in  view  of  the  world.  They 
stop  only  at  financial  landings.  And  the  result  is  too  evident. 
Mr.  George  Horace  Lorimer  accuses  seven  out  of  ten  for 
merly  conscientious  and  painstaking  story  writers  of  now 
writing  so  obviously  for  the  movies  that  the  scenario,  yes, 
even  to  cut-backs,  is  as  visible  in  their  tales  as  the  bones  in 
an  X-ray  print.  It  may  well  be  that  those  who  get  rich  so 
quickly  nowayears  will  find  their  names  writ  in  a  medium  as 
evanescent  as  water.  Where  are  the  motion  pictures  of 
yester  year? 

Who  ever,  though,  anticipated  that  literature  would  be 
come  a  gambling  device — that  the  by-product  would  outsell 
the  primary  work?  Certainly  not  one  of  these  125  who  were 
so  well  pleased  with  eighty  dollars  pay  for  three  weeks  hard 
work!  What  rights,  then,  are  still  to  be  developed?  What 
gorgeous  pay  will  our  grand-children  receive  ?  Audition  roy 
alties  from  super  phonographs — or  serial  rights  in  Mars? 

Sooth  to  say,  the  payment  authors  receive  is  funny  money. 
I  once  told  Mr.  Henry  James  that  I  received  from  the  Chap 
Book  twenty  dollars  for  reviewing  my  first  book — and  eight 
dollars  more  for  protesting  against  the  ignorance  and  preju 
dice  of  my  reviewer.  And  sadly,  bitterly,  he  told  me  the 
secret  of  "What  Maysie  Knew." 

Would  you  believe  that  for  that  sublime  piece  of  psychol 
ogy  he  received,  for  serial  and  book  rights,  only  $150?  It 
shows  how  the  artist  regarded  his  work  in  ante  cinema  days. 
So  absorbed  was  he  with  the  theme  that,  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  he  had  contracted  to  write,  for  that  absurd 

xxviii 


INTRODUCTION 

honorarium,  merely  one  short  story,  he  spun  it  out,  chapter 
after  chapter  to  its  logical  and  fascinating  end. 

But  there  was,  as  usual,  another  side  to  the  affair.  The 
Chap  Book  eschewed  serials  at  that  time,  and  the  last  thing 
it  wanted  was  a  serial  by  so  esoteric  a  writer  as  Henry 
James.  But  on  the  installments  kept  coming,  on  and  on, 
forever.  And  at  last,  to  get  even,  Mr.  Herbert  Stone  in 
formed  me,  he  had  to  publish  the  book ! 

It  is  to  the  psychologist,  so-called — in  plain  old-fashioned 
English,  the  student  of  human  nature — that  these  pages  will 
prove,  no  doubt,  to  be  the  most  attractive  and  affording  feast. 
They  form  a  series  of  intellectual  autographs  fascinating  to 
contemplate.  "My  Maiden  Effort,"  to  the  cognoscenti  will 
probably  be  regarded  as  a  comedy.  Never,  of  course  does  a 
person  reveal  himself  with  such  naivete  as  when  talking  about 
himself — yes,  even  when  he  is  lying.  But  to  get  the  full 
flavor  of  these  personalities,  the  book  should  not  be  studied 
chapter  by  chapter,  but  devoured  at  a  gulp.  You  taste  the 
roast,  you  know,  better  after  the  punch.  Even  water  is 
sweeter  after  artichokes.  And  so  the  dominant  traits  of  these 
penitents  should  have  the  constant  spice  of  contrast. 

The  temptation,  therefore,  so  to  order  the  confessions  as 
to  present  complimentary  colors  in  juxtaposition — the  infe 
riority  complex  next  to  a  case  of  megalomania,  inhibition  near 
extra  version, — was  keen.  But  it  was  firmly  resisted.  In 
point  of  fact,  the  accidental  antitheses  provided  by  a  demo 
cratic  alphabetical  sequence  luckily  made  it  unnecessary  for 
the  editor  to  adopt  any  more  deliberately  cruel  and  revealing 
arrangement.  You  have  only  to  turn  any  page  to  go  from  red 
to  green. 

What  the  analytic,  sociological  mind,  academically  trained, 
could  and  perhaps  will  do  with  this  information  in  the  way 
of  statistics,  percentages  and  tendencies,  is  another  distress 
ing  question.  What  general  conclusions  will  be  drawn  re 
garding  American  Authorship  in  its  beginnings?  God  knows 
— and  the  professors.  Should  we  encourage  kidoid  scribbling, 
or  apply  the  back  of  a  hair  brush?  Which  is  the  more  in- 

xxix 


INTRODUCTION 

dicative  of  lasting  fame — to  pay  to  have  your  own  book  pub 
lished,  or  to  have  it  welcomed  by  the  first  publisher?  To 
have  one's  first  book  burned  and  have  to  laboriously  rewrite 
it,  or  to  find  it  spinning  itself  into  a  yarn  without  conscious 
effort  by  the  author — which  predicts  immortality?  And, 
when  it  comes  right  down  to  it,  how  many  immortals  have 
we,  in  our  125,  anyhow? 

Ask  any  one  of  them,  almost,  and  no  doubt  his  answer 
will  be  like  a  comment  I  once  heard  at  the  National  Liberal 
Club,  in  London.  I  was  calling  on  Harold  Frederic  that 
day.  He  was  entertaining  one  after  another  visitor,  drinking 
varicolored  drinks  and  playing  pool  the  while.  Now,  at  op 
posite  ends  of  that  billiard  room  were  two  authors,  forming 
the  most  striking  literary  contrast  that  could  well  be  imag 
ined.  Charlie  Hoyt,  author  of  "A  Hole  in  the  Ground,"  and 
other  famous  outrageous  farces — and  Maurice  Maeterlinck, 
of  whom  (ignorant  of  the  fact  that  the  gentleman  beside  him 
was  Alfred  Sutro),  I  had  just  been  asking,  "Comment  tfrou- 
vez-vous  vos  traductions  en  anglais?" 

And  it  came  to  pass  that  Hoyt  looked  across  at  the  Belgian 
poet.  Looked  long  and  thoughtfully — dreamily.  Then, 
finally,  he  remarked,  with  that  inimitable  New  England 
drawl  of  his,  "You  know,  I  don't  think  much  of  that  man's 
plays."  And  as  his  eyes  came  back  to  mine  with  a  shrewd 
gleam,  he  added,  "But  I  guess  I  like  'em  about  as  well  as 
he  likes  mine!" 

Again,  what  environment  is  best  for  the  budding  genius? 
The  well-selected,  well-filled  library  of  L.  W.  D. ;  or  M.  A.'s 
lonely  desert?  Shall  we  educate  our  future  great  writer  in 
the  law,  in  medicine,  or  civil  engineering?  Or  simply  trust 
blindly  that  he  may  resist  or  outgrow  the  simian  mimetic 
suggestions  of  a  classic  course  in  numbered  English?  Well, 
each  author,  you  will  see,  answers  from  his  own  experience, 
and  finds  his  own  training  best.  And  so  no  doubt  it  was — 
for  him.  Still,  one  thing  at  least  seems  to  be  proved  for  this 
generation.  Pedagogics  may  have  improved  since  1895,  and 
a  way  may  be  discovered  in  the  future  to  teach  an  art  by 

XXX 


INTRODUCTION 

rules;  but  no  one  in  this  list  at  least  has  attributed  his  suc 
cess  to  one  of  those  "How  to  Write  a  Short  Story"  courses 
conducted  by  instructors  who  have  never  written  a  good  one. 

More  than  that.  I  think  almost  every  one  of  these  125 
successful  writers  will  agree  that  the  fatuity  of  the  attempt 
to  teach  story-writing  is  not  so  much  the  inadequate  or  mis 
taken  methods  of  instruction,  as  the  fact  that  such  courses 
do  not  attract  the  few  who  are  to  become  real  authors.  The 
systematized  method  appeals  mainly  to  the  many  who  mistake 
desire  for  talent.  Those  who  have  the  sacred  creative  spark 
can  seldom  endure  to  learn  of  schools.  No,  we  believed  in  the 
"call,"  and  that  each  must  work  out  his  own  originality  alone. 

Alone.  Ah  yes,  so  separately,  in  fact,  that  never,  even 
within  the  Authors'  League  does  one  hear  talk  of  art.  Not 
even  of  technique,  nor  method,  nor  style.  We  have  the 
aesthetic  reticence  of  Englishmen  with  regard  to  their  emo 
tions.  Why,  wasn't  it  Rupert  Hughes  who  said  that  the 
Council  of  the  Authors'  League  consisted  of  intimate  friends 
who  had  not  one  of  them  ever  read  another's  books? 

And  so,  although  this  book  should  really  be  dedicated  to 
the  aspirants  in  the  field  of  letters — the  new  generation  to 
tend  the  sacred  shrine — -I  cannot  help  hoping  that  it  may 
serve,  too,  to  introduce,  some  of  these  125  lonely  souls  to 
each  other.  May  they  awake  and  realize  that  the  writers 
here  represented  are  not  merely  men  and  women,  but  authors 
whose  work  should  be  recognized,  even  if  only  in  their 
Maiden  Efforts! 

August  1st,  1921.  GELETT  BURGESS. 

NOTE:  Acknowledgment  should  be  made  of  the  courtesy  of 
T.  P's  Weekly  for  permission  to  reprint  the  stories  of  K.  D.  W. 
and  R.  Le  G.,  of  The  Bookman  for  the  use  of  J.  H.'s  and  W.  A. 
W.'s  articles,  and  of  The  Saturday  Evening  Post — I  think  it  was — 
some  name  like  that — for  the  confession  of  J.  D.  D. 

Also  thanks  are  due  to  Mr.  C.  W.  Burkett  for  his  assistance  in 
reading  the  proofs  of  this  book. 

And  now  if  you  believ*  in  the  Fund,  buy  copies  for  all  your 
friends! 


xxxi 


MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 


SAMUEL  HOPKINS  ADAMS 

Maiden  effort?  If  by  that  term  is  indicated  one's  first 
commercial  or  productive,  in  other  words  profes 
sional  attempt,  mine  was  a  Poem  of  Passion.  Not 
my  own,  but  another's  passion;  chaste,  discreet  and,  as  I  re 
call  it,  unrequited,  though  that  is  perhaps  irrelevant.  What 
is  germane  to  the  present  issue  is  that  my  own  essay  was 
requited  in  the  sum  of  three  dollars,  which  subsequently 
turned  out  a  loss. 

As  a  Sophomore  at  Hamilton  College  I  had  contributed 
various  fugitive  verse  to  the  Lit.  I  had  a  friend  and  class 
mate  whom  I  will  charitably  shroud  under  the  name  of 
Chauncey  (he  has  since  become  a  prosperous  manufacturer 
of  sandpaper  or  something  equally  utile  and  would  not,  I 
am  sure,  go  a-vagranting  in  the  paths  of  poesy,  even  in  his 
advertising)  and  who  was  deeply  enamored  of  an  attractive 
maiden  in  the  neighboring  city  of  Utica.  One  evening  he 
came  to  my  room  looking  secret,  care-worn,  and  self-con 
scious. 

"What's  got  into  you  to  be  writing  all  that  guff  for  the 
Lit?"  he  began. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,"  said  I,  loath  to  claim  the  divine 
afflatus  before  this  crass  and  unsympathetic  soul. 

"Don't  get  anything  out  of  it,  do  you?"  was  his  next 
query. 

"No." 

"Well— how  would  you  like  to?" 

I  stared  at  him,  uncomprehending.  After  sundry  mental 
wigglings  and  writhings,  he  came  out  with  his  proposal.  ^  I 
was  to  indite,  for  spot  cash,  a  poem  to  be  sent  to  his  in 
amorata,  who  was  of  a  sentimental  and  literary  inclination — 
as  his  own.  Two  considerations  impelled  to  accept.  First, 


SAMUEL  HOPKINS  ADAMS 

Maiden  effort?  If  by  that  term  is  indicated  one's  first 
commercial  or  productive,  in  other  words  profes 
sional  attempt,  mine  was  a  Poem  of  Passion.  Not 
my  own,  but  another's  passion;  chaste,  discreet  and,  as  I  re 
call  it,  unrequited,  though  that  is  perhaps  irrelevant.  What 
is  germane  to  the  present  issue  is  that  my  own  essay  was 
requited  in  the  sum  of  three  dollars,  which  subsequently 
turned  out  a  loss. 

As  a  Sophomore  at  Hamilton  College  I  had  contributed 
various  fugitive  verse  to  the  Lit.  I  had  a  friend  and  class 
mate  whom  I  will  charitably  shroud  under  the  name  of 
Chauncey  (he  has  since  become  a  prosperous  manufacturer 
of  sandpaper  or  something  equally  utile  and  would  not,  I 
am  sure,  go  a-vagranting  in  the  paths  of  poesy,  even  in  his 
advertising)  and  who  was  deeply  enamored  of  an  attractive 
maiden  in  the  neighboring  city  of  Utica.  One  evening  he 
came  to  my  room  looking  secret,  care-worn,  and  self-con 
scious. 

"What's  got  into  you  to  be  writing  all  that  guff  for  the 
Lit?"  he  began. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,"  said  I,  loath  to  claim  the  divine 
afflatus  before  this  crass  and  unsympathetic  soul. 

"Don't  get  anything  out  of  it,  do  you?"  was  his  next 
query. 

"No." 

"Well — how  would  you  like  to?" 

I  stared  at  him,  uncomprehending.  After  sundry  mental 
wigglings  and  writhings,  he  came  out  with  his  proposal.  ^  I 
was  to  indite,  for  spot  cash,  a  poem  to  be  sent  to  his  in 
amorata,  who  was  of  a  sentimental  and  literary  inclination — 
as  his  own.  Two  considerations  impelled  to  accept.  First, 


2'  '    ,MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

'I' was 'particularly  hard  up  in  my  Sophomore  year  (also, 
for  that  matter,  in  my  Freshman,  Junior  and  Senior  years)  ; 
second,  I  already  had  my  hand  in,  as  I  had  decided  to  enter 
the  lists  of  the  Prize  Poem  Contest  just  established  by  Clin 
ton  Scollard — first  prize,  $10;  second  prize,  $5. 

"All  right,"  I  agreed.    'Til  do  it.    What'll  you  give  me?" 

"A  dollar,"  replied  Chauncey,  with  empressment. 

"Come  off!"  I  retorted.    "Five,  or  I  won't  stir  a  pen." 

"Who  d'you  think  you  are?  E.  P.  Roe?"  he  demanded, 
indignantly.  "I'll  tell  you  now;  make  it  a  hummer  and 
I'll  raise  it  to  two  bones." 

A  long  and  embittering  contest  followed,  but  I  stuck  out 
so  staunchly  for  the  rewards  of  Calliope  that  he  finally  met 
me  on  the  compromise  ground  of  three  dollars,  one-third 
down,  the  balance  upon  acceptance. 

There  was  no  trouble  about  the  acceptance;  he  admitted 
himself  quite  satisfied  with  the  finished  product,  over  which 
I  sat  up  most  of  that  night;  though  I  cannot  confidently 
say  as  much  of  the  inamorata,  who  subsequently  married  a 
minister.  And,  indeed,  he  got  his  full  money's  worth  in 
eleven  stanzas,  which  I  should  be  glad  to  reproduce  here  but 
for  lack  of  space.  Having  relieved  my  soul  of  this  com 
mercial  burden,  I  set  hopefully  about  concluding  my  own 
masterpiece  for  the  competition. 

Having  copied  the  precious  eleven  stanzas  twice,  on  ac 
count  of  his  initial  experiment  being  afflicted  with  blots, 
Chauncey  went  to  Utica  over  Sunday  to  deliver  them  to  the 
lady  of  his  heart,  carelessly  leaving  the  maculated  copy  on 
his  desk  where  it  was  discovered  by  his  room-mate.  Room 
mate  (one  of  those  infernally  helpful  souls!)  read,  admired 
and,  with  discriminating  taste  and  practical  application 
thereof,  entered  the  manuscript  in  the  Prize  Poem  Contest 
as  Chauncey 's. 

Exit  Poesy;  enter  Tragedy. 

The  three-dollar  poem  took  the  ten-dollar  first  prize. 
My  own  hopeful  offering,  which  would  otherwise  have  been 
the  winner,  was  relegated  to  second  place,  with  an  honor 
arium  of  only  five  dollars.  Thus  the  account  stood 


SAMUEL   HOPKINS    ADAMS  3 

CREDIT  DEBIT 

To  one  hired  poem.  .$3.00     To  one  lost  first  prize. $10.00 

To  one  second  prize.   5.00  Total   $10.00 

—  8.00 

Total    $8.00  

LOSS    on    transaction $2.00 

Throughout  my  subsequent  literary  career  I   have  been 
striving  to  catch  up  with  that  heart-breaking  deficit. 
I  have  never  quite  succeeded. 

GEORGE  ADE 

At  the  age  of  fifteen,  in  1881,  I  broke  into  print.    The 
essay  which  I  read  before  our  "literary"  society  was 
commended  to  the  local  editor  by  the  school  super 
intendent  and  that  is  how  I  became  a  contributor.     Before 
that    time    I    had    loafed    around    the    printing   offices    and 
brought  in  news  items;  but  "A  Basket  of  Potatoes"  was  the 
first  effort  which  had  the  size  and  the  smug  pretention  of  a 
real  effort. 

Today  I  have  read  the  thing  over  again  for  the  first  time 
in  many,  many  years.  One  of  my  esteemed  relatives  had  it 
put  away  in  a  scrap  book.  It  seems  that  when  I  was  fifteen 
years  old  I  knew  life  in  its  serious  aspects  more  deeply  than 
I  know  it  now,  at  the  age  of  fifty-four.  The  essay  was  a 
ponderous  affair.  I  held  my  head  and  moralized  all  the 
time  I  was  writing  it.  I  knew  all  about  the  benefits  of 
"education"  and  the  horrors  of  "intemperance."  I  was 
sure  of  almost  anything.  Following  is  the  whole  thing  as 
printed  in  the  Gazette  paper  of  Kentland,  Indiana,  some 
time  in  November,  1881 : 

A  BASKET  OF  POTATOES. 

A  very  common  subject,  and  one  on  which  it  would 
seem  as  if  little  could  be  said.  Just  a  common  basket 
of  potatoes,  composed  of  large  potatoes,  small  potatoes 
and  medium-sized  potatoes.  And  yet  by  this  basket 
of  potatoes  we  can  illustrate  the  great  problem  of  sue- 


MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

cess  in  life,  of  how  men  rise  to  the  top  of  the  ladder, 
and  why  men  stay  at  the  bottom  and  why  men  can 
never  rise  to  high  places.  Now  let  us  begin  our  investi 
gations.  Here  is  a  bushel  basket  and  here  is  a  bushel 
of  potatoes.  We  pour  the  potatoes  into  the  basket  and 
now  we  will  make  our  first  comparison  or  supposition. 

Each  one  of  these  potatoes  is  a  young  man  not  yet 
entered  on  his  life's  great  work.  The  large  potatoes  are 
large  minded,  large  hearted,  honest  young  men.  The 
small  potatoes  are  small  minded,  small  hearted,  mean, 
dishonest  young  men.  The  medium  potatoes  are  a 
mixture  of  the  good  and  bad.  As  we  have  them  now 
the  large  ones  and  small  ones  are  mixed  all  over  the 
basket.  There  are  large  ones  at  the  bottom  and  small 
ones  at  the  top  and  vice  versa.  Now  let  the  battle  of 
life  begin.  Let  these  young  men  be  put  upon  a  level 
footing  and  be  put  face  to  face  with  the  stern  realities 
of  life.  We  will  illustrate  this  with  the  basket  of 
potatoes  by  lifting  it  up  and  jolting  and  shaking  and 
tipping  it  very  thoroughly  for  some  time,  and  then  when 
we  stop  we  find  to  our  surprise  that  the  small  potatoes 
have  gone  to  the  bottom  and  the  large  potatoes  have 
gone  to  the  top,  while  the  medium-sized  have  stopped  in 
the  center  and  do  not  seem  to  go  either  way. 

Friends,  remember  this;  in  the  tough,  earnest  battle 
of  life  the  big  potatoes  will  go  to  the  top  and  the  small 
ones  will  go  to  the  bottom.  There  are  few  rules  which 
have  no  exceptions  and  it  is  thus  with  this  rule,  for 
here  right  on  the  top  of  the  basket  we  find  a  small 
potato  and  we  are  puzzled  accordingly,  but  it  is  soon 
clear,  for  upon  investigation  we  find  that  it  is  held  in 
its  place  by  two  large  ones  and  from  this  we  draw  a 
conclusion:  "Whenever  you  see  a  small  potato  in  the 
top  of  the  basket,  somebody's  holding  it  there." 

And  there  are  several  other  exceptions,  for  down 
in  the  bottom  of  the  basket  we  find  several  large  ones 
and  again  we  are  mystified,  but  it  soon  clears  away  and 
we  know  the  cause  when  we  discover  projecting  from 


GEORGE   ADE 

each  one  several  large  knots  or  projections;  and  in  order 
that  these  potatoes  may  have  a  fair  chance  we  break 
off  these  knots  and  discover  that  the  most  common  knot 
is  intemperance.  The  others  are  love  of  gain,  inac 
tivity  and  several  other  bad  habits.  And  from  this 
we  draw  the  conclusion  that  if  we  would  rise  to  the 
top  we  must  break  off  our  bad  habits  and  vices  and 
be  as  big  potatoes  as  possible. 

What  is  true  in  one  case  is  true  in  another  and  we 
find  that  small  potatoes  are  kept  on  top  by  these  pro 
jections  and  when  these  are  examined  we  find  that 
smooth  tongues  and  lying  words  have  put  them  on  the 
level  of  the  big  potatoes. 

And  now  we  have  everything  fixed  to  our  satisfac 
tion,  and  are  satisfied  with  our  examinations,  we  casually 
pick  up  the  largest  potato  in  the  basket  and  look  at  it 
and  discover  something  which  we  had  not  before 
noticed,  viz — a  large  rotten  spot  in  the  otherwise  solid 
body.  And  from  this  we  draw  the  conclusion  that  even 
the  big  potatoes  are  not  all  perfect  and  man  is  apt  to 
be  sinful  in  spite  of  everything.  And  so  it  is  every 
where  ;  life  is  but  a  basket  of  potatoes.  When  the  hard 
jolts  come  the  big  will  rise  and  the  small  will  fall.  The 
true,  the  honest  and  the  brave  will  go  to  the  top.  The 
small  minded  and  ignorant  must  go  to  the  bottom. 

And  now  I  would  like  to  say  something  to  these 
young  potatoes.  Now  is  the  time  for  you  to  say 
whether  or  not  in  the  battle  of  life  you  will  be  a  small 
or  large  potato.  If  you  would  be  a  large  potato  get 
education,  be  honest,  observing  and  careful  and  you  will 
be  jolted  to  the  top.  If  you  would  be  a  small  potato 
neglect  these  things  and  you  will  get  to  the  bottom  of 
your  own  accord.  Break  off  your  bad  habits,  keep  away 
from  rotten  potatoes  and  you  will  get  to  the  top.  Be 
careless  of  these  things  and  you  will  reach  the  bottom  in 
due  time.  Everything  rests  with  you.  Prepare  for  the 
jolting. 


6  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

JAMES  LANE  ALLEN 

Back  in  those  tidal  years  of  our  native  fiction  when 
Henry  James  and  William  Dean  Howells  appeared 
as  riding  on  the  crest  of  the  one  national  wave  and 
everyone  else  as  wallowing  or  drowning  around  them  in  the 
trough  of  the  sea — with  three  or  four  monthly  American 
magazines  as  the  lonely  lighthouses  of  their  hope  or  their 
despair — back  in  those  surging  years  there  one  day  fell  into 
my  hands  by  some  unremembered  chance  a  copy  of  Mr. 
James's  brilliant  and  provocative  novel,  "The  Portrait  of 
a  Lady." 

I  was  teaching  in  the  University  at  Lexington,  Kentucky, 
at  the  time;  among  other  subjects,  teaching  English.  That 
is,  true  to  pedagogic  type  and  temper,  thumb  and  thumb 
screw,  I  was,  as  a  salaried  official  of  education,  engaged  in 
painfully  making  known  to  classes  of  rapidly  growing  but 
perhaps  of  not  quite  so  rapidly  learning  young  Americans, 
what  the  English  language  is  and  how  the  English  language 
should  be  written.  This  major  operation — performed  then, 
as  it  everywhere  usually  is,  at  a  minor  desk — involved  the 
demonstration  of  how  bad  has  been  the  English  sometimes 
underwritten  by  the  great,  even  by  the  greatest;  and  a  tri- 
iumph  of  the  entire  method  lay  in  stretching  an  immortal 
as  a  corpus  delicti  on  the  dissecting  table  before  the  student 
body  for  the  extremely  impressive  exposure  of  his  extremely 
unimpressive  faults. 

It  was  altogether  in  the  pedagogic  nature  of  things,  there 
fore,  when  one  night  I  entered  upon  the  reading  of  Mr. 
James's  novel,  for  me  to  discover  on  the  first  page  that  I 
did  not  approve  of  the  way  in  which  the  author  had  written 
it.  Not  a  line  of  fiction  had  I  ever  written ;  but  the  fact  in 
no  wise  interfered  with  the  conviction  that  Mr.  James  with 
his  genius,  art,  care,  and  experience  combined,  had  not 
opened  his  novel  quite  so  well  as  I  could  have  opened  it 
myself.  Putting  pen  to  paper,  I  forthwith  demonstrated 
how  imperfect  as  a  piece  of  literary  art  Mr.  James's  opening 
was,  entitled  my  derisive,  destructive  essay  "The  First  Page 


JAMES    LANE   ALLEN  7 

of  'The  Portrait  of  a  Lady/  "  and  dropped  my  improvement 
into  the  mail. 

There  flourished  in  the  New  York  City  of  the  period  a 
literary  weekly  whose  peculiar  claim  it  was  to  offer  its 
readers  only  such  reviews  as  were  prepared  by  expert 
authority.  Perhaps  its  occasional  activity  might  be  described 
as  that  of  fostering  the  criticism  of  distinguished  attack.  I 
regularly  read  this  aggressive  periodical,  and  to  it  naturally 
forwarded  my  distinguished  attack  on  Mr.  James.  Promptly 
there  reached  me  from  the  editorial  office  an  acceptance  and 
a  check. 

The  first  thing  that  I  had  ever  written  and  offered  for 
publication  had  been  accepted,  paid  for!  Mr.  James  was  a 
resounding  name  on  that  vast,  mountainous  upland  of  letters. 
I  had  successfully  attacked  him.  He  would  read  my  article 
and  be  thunderstruck.  Mr.  Howells  would  read  it  and 
secretly,  quickly,  tighten  the  screws  on  all  his  first  pages. 
Mr.  James's  publishers  would  read  it  and  look  at  one  an 
other  with  blank  faces,  upset,  uneasy.  The  regular  review 
ers  of  Mr.  James's  books  would  disparage  me,  envious  that 
they  had  been  less  keen  or  less  courageous.  My  friends 
would  read  it  and  say:  "This  is  what  I  have  always  known 
you  were  destined  for!"  Whoever  opened  the  pages  of  that 
austere  and  occasionally  brutal  periodical  would  encounter 
the  article  as  its  opening  essay  and  bring  his  eyes  to  rest 
upon  a  new  name,  never  before  printed. 

With  all  this  glorious  young  summer  of  imaginary  success 
within  me  there  took  shape  in  my  imagination  and  sympa 
thies  a  sequence  of  verses  to  picture  the  contending  spirits  of 
joy  confronted  in  nature  always  by  suffering,  life  chased  by 
death. 

I  hunted  up  a  little  printing  shop,  chose  from  the  printer's 
stock  his  finest  paper,  chose  from  his  assortment  the  fittest 
type,  and  had  him  bestow  upon  my  verses  the  finality  and 
perpetuity  of  a  stray  leaf  from  an  imaginary  volume  of  much 
read  poems — a  method  and  a  solace  well  known  always  to 
poets  of  the  unpublished.  I  sent  my  stray  leaf  of  perpetuity 
to  the  editor  of  Harper's  Magazine,  not  knowing  who  he 


8  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

was,  and  from  the  editor  of  Harper's  Magazine  I  promptly 
received  an  acceptance  and  a  check. 

More  had  come,  far  more,  than  that.  There  had  come 
the  opening  of  a  pathway,  and  in  that  pathway  I  was  hence 
forth  to  walk  as  my  road  of  life,  lead  whither  and  how  it 
would — a  country  bypath:  at  one  end  in  certain  green 
pastures  I,  native  to  them;  at  the  other  end,  seated  beside  a 
great  highway  of  the  world  and  looking  at  me  out  of  its 
dust  and  din — quite  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  looking  at 
me  with  recognition  of  the  first  stroke  of  creative  work — 
Henry  Mills  Alden. 

As  soon  as  possible  I  took  that  pathway  straight  toward 
him.  He  had  accepted  my  first  verses;  he  accepted  my  first 
short  story;  he  told  me,  upon  examination  of  several  pieces 
of  my  work,  that  what  I  lacked  was  the  discovery  of  a 
definite  field;  he  gave  me  in  complete  trust  my  first  com 
mission  for  an  illustrated  article  on  "The  Bluegrass  Region 
of  Kentucky";  and  now  looking  backward  upon  the  men 
who  variously  influenced  my  course  in  those  first  groping 
and  rather  baffled  years,  I  see  him  as  the  one  who,  with  a 
sign  to  me,  walked  to  an  unseen  gate,  pushed  it  open,  and 
pointed  to  onward  road. 


GERTRUDE  ATHERTON 

My  highly  respected  editor  insists  that  I  tell  the  pub 
lic   the  story  of  my   first  literary  crime,   and   al 
though   egotism   of   any   sort   seems  out   of   place 
these    days,    there    is    only    one    way    of    unfastening    his 
tentacles.     So  here  goes,  for  what  it  is  worth. 

I  heard  much  during  my  girlhood  of  a  certain  Nelly 
Gordon,  whose  father's  estate  was  on  the  present  site  of 
the  Stanford  University  at  Palo  Alto,  California. 

My  mother  had  known  her  when  she  was  a  brilliant 
figure  in  San  Francisco  society,  but  she  had  long  since 
disappeared  from  that  sacrosanct  Ark,  and  was  only  men- 


GERTRUDE   ATHERTON  9 

tioned  with  bated  breath  when  the  heroine  of  some  new 
scandal.  She  was  drinking  herself  to  death  and  her  other 
indiscretions  were  many. 

After  I  married  I  heard  more  of  her,  as  my  father- 
in-law's  country  place  was  near  the  Gordon  estate,  and 
my  sisters-in-law  had  been  very  intimate  with  her;  they 
told  me  that  once,  in  her  girlhood,  her  distracted  father 
had  sent  Nelly  to  stay  with  them  for  a  year  in  order  to 
get  her  away  from  her  mother,  a  thoroughly  depraved 
woman,  who  had  been  an  English  barmaid  in  her  youth. 
Mrs.  Gordon,  however,  sent  her  bottles  of  whiskey  with 
her  laundry,  and  no  precautions  availed.  She  was  a  beau 
tiful  gifted  creature,  but  had  drawn  in  the  desire  to  drink 
with  her  mother's  milk,  and  Mrs.  Gordon,  whose  ignorant 
mind  was  concentrated  upon  hatred  of  her  gentleman  hus 
band,  taught  the  child  to  like  whiskey  as  a  sure  means  of 
revenge  upon  the  man  who  idolized  his  daughter  and 
scorned  herself. 

Although  stories  were  always  simmering  in  my  mind, 
I  married  before  my  schooldays  were  finished,  and  had 
no  time  for  several  years  after  to  think  of  writing.  To 
read  was  all  I  could  accomplish.  One  day,  however,  long 
after  Nelly  Gordon's  death,  I  read  a  sad  little  article  in  a 
local  paper.  Someone,  during  the  protracted  settlement 
of  the  Gordon  estate,  had  come  upon  an  old  trunk  and  sent 
it  to  the  auction  room.  It  contained  Nelly's  wedding  finery, 
including  tiny  satin  slippers,  two  old  albums,  trinkets,  plate, 
and  Mr.  Gordon's  Crimean  War  Medal.  A  good  many 
people  rushed  to  the  sale  as  they  were  anxious  to  get  their 
old  photographs,  some  of  them  taken  with  Nelly  Gordon, 
before  the  press  got  hold  of  them.  The  man  who  wrote 
the  article  gave  a  graphic  account  of  the  auction  and  went 
into  some  details  of  Nelly  Gordon's  tragic  history. 

This  roused  my  interest  to  such  an  extent  that  I  "felt"  a 
story  and  went  over  at  once  to  the  house  of  one  of  my 
sisters-in-law,  and  asked  her  advice. 

"It  would  make  a  wonderful  story,"  she  replied,  "and  I 


10  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

will  tell  you  the  details."  This  she  did,  including  one 
dramatic  scene.  I  went  home  and  wrote  the  story  with 
enthusiasm. 

My  husband,  who  had  been  one  of  the  young  bloods  of 
his  day,  was  with  Nelly  Gordon  when  she  died,  and  gave 
me  a  graphic  description  of  that  sordid  and  terrible  end  of 
one  of  the  most  notable  figures  in  the  early  history  of  San 
Francisco.  After  it  was  finished  I  told  a  very  eminent 
lawyer,  who  had  had  charge  of  the  Gordon  estate,  what 
I  had  done,  and  he  said  it  was  high  time  some  one  should 
make  a  novel  out  of  that  picturesque  story. 

Being  very  callow,  and  having  recently  read  an  essay  of 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson  on  Alliteration  and  Assonance,  I 
called  the  story  "The  Randolphs  of  Redwoods." 

I  took  it  to  the  San  Francisco  Argonaut  and  the  editor 
accepted  it  promptly,  although  with  a  cynical  smile  that  I 
did  not  interpret  until  later.  Nor  did  I  understand  why 
he  so  readily  agreed  to  publish  it  anonymously.  I  wanted 
the  fun  of  hearing  it  discussed,  and  then  announce  the 
authorship  with  a  flourish  of  trumpets. 

Well,  it  was  some  years  before  I  announced  the  author 
ship  of  that  story.  Never  before  nor  since  has  anything 
written  created  such  a  hullabaloo  in  San  Francisco  as  that 
wildest  of  all  wild  maiden  efforts.  With  the  ignorant 
audacity  of  youth  I  had  "put  in"  nearly  every  man  and 
woman  of  note  of  an  earlier  generation,  under  disguises  as 
transparent  as  moonshine,  and  made  them  do  and  say  things 
that  caused  their  respectable  gray  hairs  to  stand  straight 
up  during  the  six  weeks  the  story  ran  its  course.  More 
over,  knowing  nothing  whatever  of  the  world — I  had  not 
even  been  a  "young  lady"  and  my  husband  kept  me  almost 
literally  in  the  middle  of  a  wood — I  turned  myself  loose 
when  it  came  to  love  scenes,  and  my  imagination  took  away 
what  little  breath  was  left  in  an  outraged  public. 

The  curious  part  of  it  was  that  no  one  for  a  moment 
suspected  me. 


GERTRUDE   ATHERTON  11 

I  had  never  written  anything  for  publication  but  a  few 
pedantic  little  homilies  in  the  Argonaut,  and  I  was  too 
young  to  have  known  the  story  of  Nelly  Gordon  at  first 
hand;  the  public  was  convinced  that  some  sinner  who  was 
young  in  the  times  depicted  had  done  the  awful  deed,  and 
one  respectable  citizen  after  another  was  cut  dead.  Even 
my  sister-in-law,  who  had  given  me  the  details  when  I  told 
her  it  was  my  intention  to  write  the  story,  accused  every 
body  else,  and  was  in  a  state  of  suppressed  fury  all  the  time 
it  was  running.  Even  the  lawyer  did  not  suspect  me  al 
though  I  had  told  him  I  had  written  and  sent  it  in.  But 
when  I  met  him  on  the  train  he  could  talk  of  nothing  else. 
I  had  many  uncomfortable  moments  over  his  caustic  obser 
vations,  but  the  climax  was  reached  one  day  when  he  shook 
his  head  with  a  grimly  reminiscent  smile,  and  said,  "I  tell 
you  the  fellow  who  wrote  that  carriage  scene  had  been  there 
himself!" 

One  may  imagine  my  husband's  feelings. 

He  was  an  amiable  man  as  a  rule  but  during  some  three 
months  domestic  peace  was  obscured  in  one  corner  of  Fair 
Oaks.  He  was  in  mortal  terror  that  the  authorship  would 
leak  out,  and  this  was  one  reason  why  I  held  my  peace.  As 
a  matter  of  fact  it  was  several  years  before  the  authorship 
of  that  all  too  truthful  tale  ceased  to  come  up  at  the  dinner 
tables  where  one  or  more  of  the  old  guard  were  gathered 
together. 

When  it  did  come  out — I  finally  announced  it— the 
lawyer,  who  had  for  years  taken  a  consuming  interest  in  my 
mental  development,  ceased  to  speak  to  me,  and  I  doubt  if 
my  sister-in-law  ever  forgave  me.  But  I  had  had  an  im 
mense  time  and  was  willing  to  stand  the  consequence. 

Some  years  later — it  was  in  1895,  I  think — I  rewrote  the 
story,  expanded  it  into  a  novel,  gave  it  a  mortal  hero,  toned 
down  its  callow  recklessness,  and  published  it  under  the  title 
of  "A  Daughter  of  the  Vine." 


12  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

MARY  AUSTIN 

I  have  just  one  recollection  of  the  process  by  which  I 
learned  to  read  and  write,  which,  according  to  family 
tradition,  occurred  when  I  was  between  four  and  five 
years  of  age,  without  any  other  aid  than  might  have  been 
furnished  by  a  brother  two  years  older.  I  can  recall  having 
trouble  with  my  reading,  and  asking  to  have  passages  which 
I  had  imperfectly  apprehended  read  aloud  to  me,  but  of  the 
process  of  learning  to  write  not  a  scrap  remains.  That  I 
could  do  both,  for  my  own  pleasure,  by  the  time  I  was 
admitted  to  school  at  the  age  of  six,  is  pricked  upon  my 
mind  by  an  event  that  illuminates  the  educational  methods 
of  that  day. 

It  had  never  occurred  to  me  to  tell,  nor  the  teacher  to 
ask,  if  I  could  read,  so  I  was  entered  in  the  "chart  class" 
and  for  weeks  stood  up  with  the  others  and  recited  a-b,  ab, 
b-o,  bo. 

To  relieve  the  boredom  of  the  hours  between  recitations 
I  smuggled  a  book  under  my  desk  and  read.  But,  being 
one  day  absorbed  to  the  point  of  missing  my  class,  I  was 
obliged  to  admit  that  I  had  been  reading,  and  was  made  to 
stand  on  the  floor  for  having  told  a  lie,  since  it  was  obvious 
that  being  only  in  the  chart  class  I  could  not  read.  I  bore 
this  very  well  so  long  as  there  were  only  my  fellow  pupils 
present,  but  when  the  principal  entered  on  his  daily  round, 
I  was  provoked  to  protest  in  my  own  defence.  He  must 
have  been  a  good  principal  for  that  time,  for  he  promptly 
put  the  matter  to  a  test  and  discovered  that  I  could  read 
very  well.  He  promoted  me  on  the  spot  to  the  next  room. 

I  have  a  very  definite  impression  of  myself,  a  small, 
gawky  girl,  burdened  with  my  school  belongings,  my  hood 
and  cloak  and  my  tin  lunch  bucket,  under  the  hostile  eyes 
of  half  a  hundred  children  two  or  three  years  older  than 
myself,  who  felt  their  dignity  as  second  and  third  graders 
assailed  by  my  intrusion  among  them.  I  mention  it  here 
because  the  partial  isolation  which  resulted  from  their  atti- 


MARY   AUSTIN  13 

tude  drove  me  rather  earlier  than  might  otherwise  have 
happened  to  the  solace  of  writing. 

At  first  it  was  only  sentences,  possibly  incomplete  phrases, 
always  written  separately  on  little  slips  of  paper  which  I 
kept  rolled  up  like  cigarettes  and  used  to  secrete  in  various 
places  about  the  house.  They  were  immensely  precious  and 
important  to  me,  but  they  must  also  have  been  childishly 
absurd,  because  it  was  the  delight  of  my  family  to  rout 
them  out  of  their  hiding  places  and  read  them  aloud  to  one 
another  and  especially  to  company.  I  can  recall  the  rage 
of  violated  privacy  into  which  these  occasions  always  threw 
me  as  the  most  poignant  emotion  of  my  childhood.  I  have 
often  suspected  that  this  early  experience  has  something  to 
do  with  my  still  active  and  not  always  successful  resistance 
to  editorial  interference  with  my  later  work, 
v  My  first  organized  piece  of  writing  was  in  verse  and 
called  by  me  "A  Play  To  Be  Sung."  That  was  because, 
being  brought  up  on  the  outskirts  of  a  mid-Western  town, 
and  a  Methodist  to  boot,  I  had  never  heard  that  plays  to  be 
sung  were  usually  called  operas.  Up  to  my  sixteenth  year 
I  had  never  seen  any  kind  of  stage  performance  except  a 
Sunday  School  entertainment,  so  I  have  no  idea  where  this 
libretto  of  mine  came  from.  My  memory  of  it  is  dis 
tinctly  of  a  thing  seen,  people  in  a  closed  in  space,  moving 
about  and  singing  to  one  another,  where  they  might  be 
expected  to  talk. 

The  only  way  in  which  I  can  account  for  it  is  as  some 
thing  I  had  heard  read  aloud.  My  father  had  several  years 
of  invalidism,  during  which  it  was  my  mother's  custom  to 
read  him  to  sleep.  Though  I  was  often  caught  and  punished 
for  it,  I  could  seldom  resist  creeping  out  of  my  own  bed 
and  huddling  just  outside  the  door  to  listen,  dropping  asleep 
myself  occasionally  and  being  spanked  awake  as  I  was  put 
back  to  bed. 

I  wrote  High  School  notes  for  the  local  paper,  of  course, 
and  nearly  all  my  seat-mate's  compositions  as  well  as  my 
own  and  some  of  my  brother's.  I  wrote  for  my  College 
paper  and,  when  I  was  twenty,  I  wrote  two  short  stories. 


14  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

I  recall  that  after  having  paid  to  have  them  typewritten 
my  husband  mislaid  one  of  the  manuscripts,  the  original  copy 
of  which  had  been  destroyed.  The  other  I  sent  to  The 
Overland  Monthly,  the  editor  of  which  wrote  me  that  ht 
would  like  to  publish  my  story  but  that  he  could  not  pay 
for  it  as  Eastern  magazines  paid.  I  replied  that  he  could 
pay  me  whatever  he  was  accustomed  to  pay,  which  turned 
out  to  be  nothing  at  all.  Two  years  later,  while  moving 
and  settling  in  another  house,  the  lost  manuscript  came  to 
light  among  some  papers  of  my  husband's.  The  Overland 
was  having  a  short-story  prize  contest  then,  so  mine  was 
submitted.  I  never  heard  from  it  officially,  but  after  a  year 
or  so  I  ran  across  it  in  the  pages  of  The  Overland. 

These  experiences  discouraged  me  from  sending  out 
manuscript  and  indeed  I  finished  almost  nothing  during  the 
next  six  or  seven  years  while  I  was  occupied  with  my 
house  and  my  baby.  One  story  was  sent  to  The  Black  Cat 
by  my  husband,  who  thought  it  would  please  me  to  see  it 
in  print,  which  it  did.  But  when  about  1900  I  began  seri 
ously  to  devote  myself  to  a  writing  career,  I  made  a  list  of 
the  magazines  for  which  I  meant  to  write  in  the  order  of 
their  literary  excellence,  with  The  Atlantic  Monthly  at  the 
top. 

Accordingly,  I  sent  them  my  first  story,  which  was  ac 
cepted  and  paid  for  magnificently,  as  I  thought,  with  a 
check  for  thirty-five  dollars.  There  were  two  or  three 
other  short  stories,  if  I  remember  rightly,  variously  placed, 
and  then  all  at  once,  in  the  period  of  convalescence  after  an 
illness,  I  wrote  "The  Land  of  Little  Rain." 

To  understand  what  the  writing  of  this,  my  maiden  book, 
meant  to  me,  you  must  realize  that  up  to  that  time,  and  for 
many  years  afterwards,  I  was  living  in  a  California  town 
of  about  three  hundred  inhabitants,  and,  with  the  exception 
of  the  middle  Western  college  town  of  about  six  thousand, 
it  was  the  only  kind  of  town  I  had  ever  known.  I  had  seen 
but  two  plays,  both  of  them  without  the  knowledge  of  my 
parents.  I  had  never  seen  an  opera,  nor  a  good  picture,  nor 
heard  any  good  music.  There  was  no  library  in  the  town, 


MARY   AUSTIN  15 

not  many  books  of  any  sort.  Happily,  I  did  not  know 
enough  to  know  that  this  was  not  the  atmosphere  out  of 
which  books  were  supposed  to  be  written.  I  confidently 
expected  to  produce  books.  For  twelve  years  I  had  lived 
deeply  and  absorbedly  in  the  life  of  the  desert. 

I  was  languid  with  convalesence,  I  was  lonely;  and  quite 
suddenly  I  began  to  write.  I  began  at  the  beginning,  and, 
with  an  interval  of  months  for  another  illness,  wrote  straight 
to  the  end,  practically  without  erasures  or  revisions.  I 
remember  the  day  very  well — one  of  those  thin  days  when 
the  stark  energies  of  the  land  threaten  just  under  its  sur 
faces,  the  mountains  march  nakedly,  the  hills  confer.  The 
air  was  so  still  that  one  could  feel,  almost  hear,  the  steady 
pulse  of  the  stamp-mill  away  East  under  the  Inyo.  There 
was  a  weeping  willow  whose  long  branches  moved  back 
and  forth  across  my  window  like  blowing  hair,  like  my 
memory  of  my  mother's  long  and  beautiful  hair.  I  think 
it  was  this  which  gave  the  reminiscent  touch  to  my  mood. 
For  though  I  was  there  in  the  midst  of  it,  I  began  to  write 
of  the  land  of  little  rain  as  of  something  very  much  loved, 
now  removed.  As  I  wrote,  two  tall,  invisible  presences 
came  and  stood  on  either  side. 

I  don't  know  now  what  these  presences  were  .  .  .  are. 
For  two  or  three  years,  until  I  moved  away  from  that 
country,  in  fact,  they  were  present  when  I  wrote.  Some 
times,  I  felt  them  call  me  to  my  desk — sometimes  I  sum 
moned  them.  I  suppose  they  were  projections  out  of  my 
loneliness,  reabsorbed  into  the  subconsciousness  when  the 
need  of  them  was  past.  Though  I  could  never  quite  see 
them,  almost  but  not  quite,  and  it  is  years  since  they  have 
been  present  to  the  outward  sense,  I  am  still  occasionally 
aware  of  them  inside  of  me. 

"The  Land  of  Little  Rain"  was  promptly  accepted  by 
Houghton  Mifflin  Company  and  published  serially  in  The 
Atlantic  before  appearing  in  book  form.  It  had  an  instant 
success  of  esteem  and  is  still  selling  creditably,  enough  to 
warrant,  even  in  this  year  of  high  cost  production,  a  popular 
edition. 


16  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

And  now  it  is  time  to  make  a  confession  concerning  my 
first  book,  which  might  have  been  made  earlier  if  I  had 
been  able  to  make  up  my  mind  whether  the  joke  about  it  is 
on  me  or  on  the  public. 

The  book  had  been  much  praised  for  its  style.  Nothing 
was  further  from  my  mind  when  I  was  writing  it.  I  had 
never  exchanged  a  dozen  words  with  anybody  on  the  ques 
tion  of  style,  nor  thought  of  it  as  being  a  writer's  problem. 
What  I  did  think  was  that  the  kind  of  people  who  could 
have  enjoyed  my  country  as  I  enjoyed  it  probably  had  a 
different  medium  of  communication  from  that  employed  at 
Lone  Pine.  When  I  wrote  I  tried  always  to  write  the  way 
I  supposed  highly  cultivated  people  talked  to  one  another. 
I  knew  it  was  not  the  way  my  neighbors  talked  because 
everybody,  even  the  young  woman  who  did  my  typewriting, 
corrected  my  diction  and  my  phraseology.  "It  sounded  so 
queer,"  she  would  cheerfully  explain  her  alterations  of  my 
text.  Even  my  husband  would  offer  to  correct  my  proof 
so  as  to  bring  it  within  the  local  range,  and  the  village 
school-teacher  would  tactfully  send  me  copies  of  the  maga 
zines  containing  my  articles,  with  penciled  suggestions  of 
her  own.  But  I  stuck  to  my  original  conception  of  the 
proper  form  to  be  employed  between  me  and  the  sort  of 
people  I  hoped  to  reach. 

So  that's  all  there  is  to  the  question  of  my  maiden  style. 
I  simply  didn't  know  any  better.  I  was  astounded  to  the 
point  of  consternation  when  the  reviews  began  to  come  in 
and  I  discovered  that  I  was  supposed  to  have  "style."  Since 
I  did  not  know  in  the  least  how  it  had  been  achieved,  I  was 
always  afraid  of  losing  it.  And  now  I  am  afraid  I  never 
shall.  I  know  now  that  even  members  of  the  Poetry 
Society  and  the  Authors'  League  do  not  talk  to  one  another 
in  that  fashion,  that  they  do  not,  in  fact,  talk  very  dif 
ferently  from  the  people  in  Lone  Pine.  But  the  final  effect 
of  my  maiden  experience  as  a  writer  has  been  to  wish  it 
onto  me  for  life. 


IRVING   BACHELLER  17 

IRVING  BACHELLER 

I  stole  into  the  craft  on  my  tip-toes  as  it  were.  I  was 
scared  to  acknowledge  that  I  entertained  an  ambition 
so  extravagant.  Indeed,  in  the  House  of  Romance,  I 
have  felt  more  than  once  like  a  burglar,  likely  at  any  time 
to  be  arrested  and  thrust  out.  To  help  along,  now  and 
then,  some  fellow  with  a  raised  revolver  wishes  to  know 
what  business  I  have  there.  I  don't  let  him  bluff  me  any 
more,  for  I  find  that  my  rights  are  at  least  as  good  as  his. 

But  in  the  days  of  my  maiden  effort  I  was  plum  scared. 
I  worked  rather  stealthily  on  that  thing  Sundays  and  holi 
days.  The  family  wondered  what  I  was  doing.  They 
worried  about  me.  Finally,  out  of  a  curious  tangle  of 
inserts  and  interlineations  came  a  story  in  verse,  founded 
on  a  legend  of  the  countryside  in  which  I  was  born.  It 
was  my  first  story.  Bliss  Carman  accepted  it  for  the  Inde 
pendent  and  praised  it  and  I  was  very  happy. 

It  was  called  "Whisperin'  Bill."  It  was  a  poem  of  a 
dozen  or  more  stanzas,  and  this  is  the  way  it  began: 

So  ye're  runnin'  fer  Congress,  mister?  Le'me  tell  ye 
'bout  my  son — 

Might  make  you  fellers  carefuller  down  there  in 
Washington — 

He  clings  to  his  rifle  an'  uniform — folks  call  him 
Whisperin'  Bill; 

An'  I  tell  ye  the  war  ain't  over  yit  up  here  on  Bow 
man's  Hill. 

JOSEPHINE  DASKAM  BACON 

I'm  afraid  I'm  a  little  hazy  about  it.     Oswald  Villard 
says  that  the  Evening  Post  sent  me  my  first  checks — but 
he  says  that  about  Job  and  Don  Quixote  and  the  Baron 
Munchausen  and  other  authors  too  dead  to  contradict  the 
Post!    The  editor  of  St.  Nicholas  says  he  was  the  man,  and 


18  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

invariably  cites  Mrs.  Hodgson  Burnett  and  Mr.  Kipling  as 
proof;  and  when  I  remind  him  that  I  was  brought  up  on 
Lord  Fauntleroy  and  never  even  knew  how  to  pronounce 
Mowgli,  he  grumbles,  "Well,  you're  all  alike  anyhow — we 
start  you  off,  and  then  ..." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  think  I  first  lisped  in  numbers  in 
The  Atlantic  Monthly,  as  a  good  New  Englander  should, 
and  published  a  long  poem  there,  while  I  was  in  school.  In 
those  days  I  was  high-browed,  and  quite  superior  to  a 
million-and-a-half  guaranteed  circulation. 

Then,  just  as  I  was  graduated,  the  Century  offered  a 
prize  for  the  best  essay,  the  best  story  and  the  best  poem 
written  by  a  recent  graduate,  and  just  before  the  com 
petition  closed  I  was  bullied  into  writing  for  it  by  some 
anxious  friends. 

I  have  always  loathed  competitions  of  all  sorts:  they 
make  me  stubborn  and  sulky,  and  I  think  them  idiotic.  But 
it  never  occurred  to  me  to  do  any  less  than  the  three,  so  I 
scoldingly  turned  off  one  of  each,  and  dear  Mr.  Gilder 
once  confided  to  me,  years  later,  that  he  had  voted  for  all 
three,  and  that  two  of  them — the  story  and  the  poem — just 
missed  winning  the  prizes. 

They  bought  them  both,  however,  and  The  Atlantic 
Monthly  bought  the  essay,  and  I  made  more  than  the  prize 
was  worth. 

A  busy  and  versatile  vice-president  of  those  days  (a  cer 
tain  Mr.  Roosevelt)  occupied  many  sheets  of  typewritten 
paper  in  a  serious  and  detailed  criticism  of  the  essay — it  was 
on  the  "Distinguishing  Characteristics  of  American  Poetry," 
or  something  like  that — and  I  still  have  the  friendly  and 
amazing  letter  in  which  he  gravely  agrees  or  disagrees  with 
each  point  in  the  thesis. 

But  I  think  my  real  breaking  into  print  was  when  I 
broke  in  nationally,  so  to  speak,  with  "The  Madness  of 
Philip." 

Philip  was  the  first  wave  of  the  flood  of  what  is  tech 
nically  known  as  "child-stuff"  that  afterwards  deluged  the 
magazines,  and  Miss  Viola  Roseboro,  who  read  the  manu- 


JOSEPHINE    DASKAM    BACON  19 

script  for  McClures  Magazine,  has  since  assured  me  that 
she  made  it  a  rule,  after  that,  to  read  every  badly  written 
long-hand  manuscript  that  came  into  her  hands — all  for  the 
sake  of  my  naughty  kindergarten  baby! 

I  am  solemnly  assured  by  the  experienced  young  women 
who  toil  up  to  the  country  to  interview  me  for  the  Saturday 
Evening  Sun,  that  I  could  have  made  a  fortune  had  I  stuck 
to  child-stuff — but  how  dull  it  would  have  been!  Like 
making  collar-buttons,  I  should  suppose. 

Out  of  twenty- two  books,  I've  never  done  but  two  that 
faintly  resembled  each  other,  either  in  style  or  subject — and 
they  still  want  me  to  write  for  the  Saturday  Evening  Post! 
(But  there  has  to  be  an  exception  for  every  rule.) 

Like  everybody  who  has  any  real  common  sense  or  con 
science,  I  suppose,  I  felt  rather  guilty  at  taking  real  money 
for  what  I  wrote,  but  I  suppose  I  decided  that  any  healthy 
person  who  could  sit  still  long  enough  to  write,  ought  to 
be  paid  for  it,  and  now  I've  grown  used  to  the  idea. 

But  I  think  that  in  our  next  incarnations  we'll  all  be 
stokers  or  elevator  boys  or  trick  bicyclists  or  skirt-and-coat 
hands,  or  anything  that  requires  a  real  technique! 


RAY  STANNARD  BAKER 

My  maiden  effort,  as  I  now  recall  it,  was  twins.    They 
saw  the  light  of  day  while  I  was  working,  one  long, 
dull  winter,  in  a  land  office  in  North  Wisconsin.    I 
was  twenty-two  years  old. 

It  had  been  a  secret  ambition  of  mine,  ever  since  I  could 
remember,  to  write.  And  here  I  was  reading  Blackstone's 
Commentaries  and  Anson  on  Contracts,  trying  to  finish  a 
law  course.  It  bored  me  to  death.  One  evening  I  resolved 
to  stand  it  no  longer,  so  I  chucked  Anson  •  into  a  corner, 
buried  Blackstone  in  a  cupboard — and  never  opened  either 
of  them  again. 

That  night  I  resolved  to  try  my  hand  at  writing — and  sat 
down  at  once  and  began.  The  next  evening  I  finished  a 


20  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

"poem" — and  began  on  a  short  story,  which  I  completed  a 
couple  of  evenings  later.  These  were  the  twins  I  spoke  of. 

I  regarded  them  secretly  as  lusty  and  well-favored  in 
fants:  but  concealed  their  existence.  I  think  I  wanted  them 
to  burst  full-orbed  upon  an  astonished  world. 

Where  should  I  have  my  masterpieces  published?  I  con 
sidered  that  nothing  but  the  best  would  do;  and  I  even 
wondered  if  there  were  not  something  a  little  better  than 
the  best.  I  finally  sent  the  "poem"  to  Harpers'  and  the 
story  to  The  Century.  I  shall  never  forget  the  period  of 
hot  expectancy  which  followed. 

It  was  exactly  sixteen  days  (I  counted  'em)  when  I  got 
the  letter  from  Harpers'  and  carried  it  with  fast-beating 
heart  back  to  my  room.  I  had  composed  the  cordial,  con 
gratulatory  response  of  the  editor  in  at  least  a  dozen 
versions:  I  opened  the  envelope  with  trembling  hands.  My 
own  "poem"  fell  out — with  the  cruelly  polite,  printed  rejec 
tion  slip,  the  first  trickle  of  a  flood  that  followed.  It  was 
a  terrific  blow,  but  it  prepared  me  for  the  return  of  my 
story,  a  few  days  later,  with  a  similar  slip. 

We  used  a  wood  stove  in  our  office  in  those  days.  I 
opened  the  door  and  put  both  the  poem  and  the  story  into 
the  fire  (where,  I  have  no  doubt,  they  belonged).  For 
some  weeks  I  was  low  in  my  mind,  very  low.  And  then, 
one  day,  it  came  over  me  suddenly:  "By  George,  I  had  an 
idea  in  that  story!" 

That  evening  I  re-wrote  the  story,  rinding  strangely  that 
some  entirely  new  things  came  to  me  as  I  went  along.  An 
evening  or  two  later  I  re-wrote  the  poem.  The  twins  were 
alive  again! 

I  sent  them  away  to  the  editors  of  other  magazines — 
with  less  hope  to  start  with  and  less  discouragement  when 
they  came  back.  I  tried  them  all  around — growing  humbler 
and  humbler.  Finally,  I  sent  the  verses  to  a  magazine  then 
published  at  St.  Paul — I  think  it  was  called  The  Northwest 
Magazine — and,  to  my  astonishment  and  joy,  I  had  a  letter 
accepting  them. 

There  was,  however,  a  "but"  in  the  letter:  the  magazine 


RAY   STANNARD   BAKER  21 

was  scarcely  yet  upon  a  paying  basis  and  could  not  com 
pensate  me  for  my  admirable,  etc.,  etc.,  but  would  gladly 
place  my  name  on  the  subscription  list  for  one  year.  I 
jumped  even  at  this  and  looked  eagerly  in  the  next  number 
for  my  verses.  They  were  not  there.  A  month  or  two 
later  this  ingratiating  young  magazine  gave  up  the  ghost 
and  never  appeared  again.  My  verses  were  evidently  too 
much  for  it.  It  was  thus  that  my  career  as  a  poet  was 
ignominously  snuffed  out. 

The  other  twin,  after  many  adventurous  journeys,  found 
lodgment  with  the  editor  of  Short  Stories.  He  would 
gladly  take  it  and  pay  upon  publication.  Pay,  mind  you! 

I  hung  around  the  news  stands  for  the  next  number  of 
Short  Stories,  and  bought  it  eagerly.  My  story  was  not 
there.  I  tried  to  reason  out  my  disappointment  with  my 
self.  Printing  took  time:  and  perhaps  they  wanted  to 
illustrate  it!  I  must  be  reasonable.  So  I  waited  and 
pounced  upon  the  next  number.  My  name  was  not  in  it! 
I  thought  of  writing  to  the  editor,  but  I  was  afraid  he 
might  change  his  mind,  repent  his  purpose  of  paying  me, 
and  send  my  precious  story  home  again. 

Month  after  month  I  repeated  this  anxious  experience 
for  two  years  and  a  half !  And  then,  when  hope  had  almost 
burned  out,  and,  indeed,  I  had  begun  to  write  other  things, 
the  story  was  published,  May,  1895.  If  that  editor  had 
printed  my  story  two  months  after  I  sent  it  to  him,  I 
should  have  been  his  slave  for  life. 

Yet  it  was  not  so  bad,  after  all!  There  I  was  on  the 
cover — with  Anthony  Hope  and  R.  L.  Stevenson.  I  was 
also  in  the  table  of  contents:  I  was  also  on  Page  50: 
"The  Red  Scarf,  by  Ray  Stannard  Baker,  Copyrighted." 

Remains  one  sad  chapter!  It  was  to  be  paid  for  upon 
publication;  but  the  check  failed  to  come.  I  had  seen  that 
check  in  my  imagination  scores  of  times  and  had  spent  it 
hundreds.  I  needed  it  in  those  days!  It  did  not  come. 

I  knew  nothing  of  the  methods  of  publishers  and  I  was 
anxious  not  to  offend  my  particular  editor  by  reminding 
him  of  such  an  unpleasant  subject  as  checks.  He  might 


22  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

want  another  masterpiece  of  mine!  But  I  finally  wrote  to 
him  and  after  another  delay  received  a  reply  with  scarcely 
a  word  of  apology  in  it.  But  that  didn't  matter.  It  con 
tained  a  check!  I  could  not  look  at  that  check  for  some 
time.  It  was  well  that  I  put  off  the  fatal  moment  as  long  as 
I  could.  The  Check  was  for  Five  Dollars ! 

When  I  had  recovered  consciousness  I  began  to  do  a 
little  calculating.  I  had  bought  Short  Stories  every  month 
for  two  years  and  a  half  (I  felt  very  loyal  to  my  editor; 
I  had  a  sense  that  it  was,  somehow,  my  magazine)  and  paid 
twenty-five  cents  each  month ;  total,  about  seven  dollars  and 
a  half.  Credit  five  dollars  for  my  story.  Net  loss,  two 
dollars  and  a  half. 

But  it  was  a  real  experience. 

RALPH  HENRY  BARBOUR 

Paraphasing  (Note  to  Editor:  Don't  make  that  "para 
phrasing")  the  words  of  a  famous  artist,  a  check  from 
an  editor  made  me  an  author.  If  it  hadn't  been  for  the 
late  H.  C.  Bunner,  or,  to  be  more  exact,  one  of  his  hirelings, 
I  would  be  today  causing  Childe  Hassam  and  a  lot  more  of 
them  to  gnash  their  teeth  in  envy.  I  think  it  likely  that  the 
person  directly  responsible  for  this  loss  to  the  Metropolitan 
Art  Gallery  is  Harry  Leon  Wilson,  who,  at  the  far-distant 
time  to  which  I  refer,  was,  I  believe,  an  assistant  editor  of 
Puck.  I  will  not,  however,  come  out  flat-footed  and  lay  the 
blame  to  him,  for  I  am  in  the  middle  of  one  of  his  serials 
and  consider  that  he  has  enough  to  answer  for. 

Suffice  it  to  say  that  some  one  connected  with  Puck  away 
back  in  the  Dark  Ages  sent  me  a  check  for  ONE  DOLLAR. 
I  write  the  words  in  capitals  in  a  feeble  effort  to  convey  to 
the  reader  an  idea  of  how  big  it  looked  to  me.  That  simple 
event  changed  the  whole  current  of  my  life. 

Until  that  moment  I  was  all  set  to  become  a  famous 
artist,  var.,  landscape.  I  had  the  thin,  pale  face,  and  soulful 
eyes  and  vacant  expression  commonly  found  in  incipient 
painters,  and  I  was  possessed  of  the  typical  aversion  to 


RALPH    HENRY    BARBOUR  23 

barbers.  I  owned  a  full  assortment  of  pencils,  brushes  and 
paints  and  was  well  supplied  with  tracing-paper.  I  was 
remarkably  clever  with  tracing-paper.  In  age  I  was,  I 
think,  fourteen  when,  into  the  Edenic  innocence  of  my 
tender  existence,  came  the  Serpent  in  the  guise  of  a  slip  of 
green  paper. 

Now  all  I  had  done  to  amass  the  fabulous  fortune  repre 
sented  by  that  check  was  to  write  about  four  brief  lines  on  a 
half-sheet  of  letter  paper  and,  at  the  expense  of  a  two-cent 
stamp,  send  it  to  the  Editor  of  Puck.  I  am  unable  at  this 
late  day  to  quote  the  original  quatrain  accurately,  but  I 
believe  that  the  following  is  near  enough  to  show  its  idyllic 
charm  and  artless  simplicity: 

As  down  the  garden  path  I  go, 

Caressed  by  April  breezes, 
I  know  that  Spring  has  come  with  all 

Its  numerous  diseases. 

I  am  haunted  by  the  impression  that  in  the  original  form 
the  first  and  third  lines  rhymed  quite  as  perfectly  as  the 
second  and  fourth.  If  so,  I  was  a  better  poet  then  than  I 
am  today,  for  I  can't  see  now  how  I  ever  did  it. 

Naturally,  that  check  opened  up  before  my  enraptured 
eyes  a  glowing  vista  entirely  surrounded  by  oblongs  of  green 
paper.  I  figured  that  by  working  a  mere  twelve  hours  a 
day,  at  the  age  of  thirty-five,  when  it  was  proper  for  all 
elderly  men  to  retire  from  active  pursuits,  I'd  be  competing 
with  John  D.  Rockefeller  for  the  world's  supply  of  crackers 
and  milk. 

At  the  instant  I  went  over  my  computation  for  the 
fourth  time  and  changed  the  last  figure  in  the  total,  the 
world  lost  a  great  artist.  Brushes  and  paints  and  tracing- 
paper  were  contumeliously  cast  aside  and  I  launched  my 
self  on  the  Sea  of  Letters. 

Vers  de  societe  led  to  nobler  efforts  in  poesy;  and  from 
poesy,  with  the  unconscious  ease  with  which  one  passes  from 
sore  throat  to  diphtheria,  I  slipped  into  prose.  By  that  time 


24  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

I  had  completely  worn  out  two  rhyming  dictionaries,  which 
fact  must  serve  for  my  excuse. 

From  the  short  story  to  the  long  story  is  but  a  step.  I 
stepped.  And  since  then  I've  kept  stepping,  if  no  higher, 
a  durned  sight  further! 

Today,  although  Mr.  Rockefeller's  supply  of  crackers 
has  never  been  seriously  interfered  with  by  me,  I  have  one 
compensation  that  never  fails  me.  Any  old  day,  if  I  happen 
to  have  the  price,  I  can  go  to  the  art  gallery  and  gaze  pity 
ingly  at  what  I  see  there,  happy  in  the  knowledge  that,  had 
I  pursued  the  path  along  which  my  faltering  steps  first  led, 
some  folks  of  whom  I  wot  would  be  in  the  bread  line  today ! 

As  I  said  before,  I  will  not  state  positively  that  Harry 
Leon  Wilson  is  personally  to  blame  in  this  matter;  but  in 
case  these  lines  should  ever  meet  his  eyes  I  add  more  in 
sorrow  than  in  anger  the  words  of  the  poet: 

"You  made  me  what  I  am  today:  I  hope  you're  satisfied." 


REX  BEACH 

M 


cc  "]^  ^aiden  Effort"  is  not  a  good  descriptive  title  for  the 
first  stuff  I  wrote.  There  was  no  effort  connected 
with  it,  since  I  merely  stole  some  ideas  from  my 
favorite  authors  and  improved  upon  them. 

I  must  have  been  about  eleven  years  old  when  I  committed 
my  first  plagiarism;  anyhow  I  was  attending  public  school 
in  Florida  or  Illinois  or  somewhere.  I  attended  some  of 
the  most  exclusive  public  schools  in  both  states  as  long  as 
they  could  bear  me.  It  was  a  so-called  "composition,"  same 
being  a  part  of  the  mental  gymnastics  connected  with  the 
elementary  study  of  English.  Pride  in  my  first  literary  ac 
complishment  induces  me  to  leave  off  the  prefix  which  the 
story  deserved. 

It  was  a  modest  little  thing,  done  after  the  best  style  of 
Jules  Verne.  In  it  I  led  the  breathless  members  of  my 
class  on  a  trip  to  the  moon.  Fair,  for  a  beginner.  I  seem 
to  remember  that  the  teacher  acknowledged  that  she  had 
never  read  such  a  story.  In  justice  to  myself,  however,  I 


REX   BEACH  25 

must  say  that  I  rather  showed  up  Jules  as  a  piker  and 
demonstrated  what  can  really  be  accomplished  by  an  unfet 
tered  imagination.  Even  to  this  day  I  somehow  resent  the 
fact  that  he  was  so  unscrupulous  as  to  plagiarize  one  of  the 
best  ideas  I  ever  had,  and  before  I  was  even  born  and  had  a 
chance  to  copyright  it. 

Years  later  I  did  a  story  or  two  for  my  college  paper. 
Who  I  cribbed  them  from  I  can't  remember,  but  they  were 
patterned  closely  after  the  going  style  of  popular  fiction. 
They  were  gloomy,  tragic — they  had  a  punch,  believe  me. 

Now  a  break  in  continuity — a  row  of  asterisks  denoting 
a  lapse  of  time. 

I  had  returned  from  a  dried-fruitful  stay  of  about  five 
years  in  Alaska  and  was  undecided  whether  to  take  up  law, 
life  insurance  or  lime  and  cement  as  an  occupation.  One 
day  I  met  a  former  Alaskan  friend  who  informed  me,  with  an 
offensive  display  of  modesty,  that  he  had  become  an  author. 

I  was  startled,  incredulous,  for  I  rather  imagined  that 
all  authors  were  either  dead  or  lived  abroad.  Truth  to  tell 
I  had  never  thought  much  about  the  matter  and  while  I 
realized  that  books  had  to  be  written  in  order  to  become 
books,  I  had  an  idea  that  magazines  and  newspapers  just 
happened,  like  shoes  or  linen  mesh  underwear  and  such 
things.  From  hearsay  I  gathered  that  Kipling  and  Ella 
Wheeler  Wilcox  and  Sherlock  Holmes  and  Jack  London 
were  people  of  flesh  and  blood,  but  having  seen  nothing  of 
late  from  the  pens  of  George  Dickens,  Henry  W.  Stevenson 
or  Victor  Huguenot  I  had  concluded  that  all  the  regular 
authors  had  passed  on  or  were  getting  too  old  to  make  a 
decent  living. 

I  was,  in  short,  just  one  of  the  general  public,  a  "dear 
reader." 

But  here  was  revelation.  Here  was  a  real  pulsating, 
breathing,  perspiring  author;  one  with  whom  I  had  eaten 
hog-bosom  and  brown  beans  and  with  whom  I  had  con 
versed  upon  terms  of  equality. 

The  thing  did  not  seem  possible. 


26  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

My  friend  was  working  for  a  trade  paper — something 
like  the  Squab  Growers'  Gazette  or  the  Hardware  Dealers' 
Guide — soliciting  advertising.  He  had  taken  pen  in  hand 
and  had  written  an  account  of  some  Alaskan  experience. 
His  journal,  being  short  of  space,  had  printed  it.  Nothing 
more  amazing  had  ever  come  to  my  attention.  Not  once 
had  he  committed  authorship,  but  twice;  and  he  had  reaped 
a  golden  reward  for  each  offence!  Ten  dollars  a  story  was 
the  price  he  had  wrung  from  that  publication. 

I  had  not  realized  that  honest  money  could  be  made  with 
such  ease. 

Never  had  chunks  of  money  like  that  been  handed  to  me 
except  in  payment  for  carrying  something — usually  some 
thing  heavy,  like  canned  goods  or  green  house-logs.  Here 
then,  it  struck  me,  was  a  chance  to  live  in  comparative  idle 
ness;  and  on  the  spot  I  decided  to  become  an  author  while 
the  boom  was  on.  This  other  fellow  was  scarcely  half  my 
size;  I  could  carry  twice  as  much  as  he;  there  seemed  to  be 
no  good  reason  why  I  should  not  write  stories  that  would 
sell  for,  say,  twenty  dollars. 

I  began  authoring  as  soon  as  I  could  find  a  place  to  sit 
down,  and  the  immediate  fruit  of  my  first  paroxysm  may 
rightly  be  called  my  maiden  effort.  I  did  make  an  effort 
this  time;  I  worked  feverishly  for  fear  some  blight,  some 
national  calamity  would  put  an  end  to  this  golden  age  of 
letters  before  I  could  get  in  on  it. 

I  limbered  up  upon  a  fact  story.  I  got  my  blood  going  and 
my  muscles  at  work  by  doing  an  article  which  I  entitled 
"The  Quest  of  the  Ptarmigan."  It  was  just  a  warm-up, 
but  having  mastered  the  secrets  of  writing  I  hastily  mailed 
it  to  a  sporting  magazine,  then  bowed  my  neck,  laid  back 
my  ears  and  did  some  fiction. 

I  did  two  or  three  stories  before  I  heard  from  that  first 
article,  and  it  is  perhaps  lucky  that  I  did;  for  while  the 
sporting  magazine  was  delighted  to  welcome  a  new  con 
tributor,  and  while  it  accepted  my  hunting  story  with  pleas- 


REX   BEACH  27 

lire,  etc.,  etc.,  it  shocked  me  with  the  disclosure  that  it 
paid  for  its  contributions  with  subscriptions  to  the  maga 
zine.  I  could  have  as  many  as  I  wished — please  write  the 
names  and  addresses  plainly.  That  was  as  far  as  its  sporting 
nature  permitted  it  to  go.  I  sent  the  names  and  closed  up 
my  plant. 

I  left  literature  flat  and  turned  to  lime  and  cement,  with 
a  side  line  of  metal  lath  and  fire  brick.  Of  course  there 
was  a  joker  in  this  job,  too;  I  had  to  lug  samples  of  fire 
brick — a  suitcase  full — to  the  foundries.  And  some  idiot 
had  spread  those  foundries  all  over  the  suburbs  of  Chicago 
instead  of  confining  them  to  the  "loop  district." 

I  was  completely  out  of  the  authoring  humor  when  I 
heard  from  my  first  fiction  story.  McClure's  Magazine 
accepted  it  and  informed  me  that  a  check  would  follow  in 
due  time.  Of  course  I  knew  that  a  mistake  had  been  made, 
and  wrote  them  that  a  careless  office  boy  had  evidently 
slipped  a  communication  intended  for  Rudyard  Kipling  into 
my  envelope  but  it  was  all  right  with  me.  They  assured  me, 
however,  that  such  was  not  the  case  and  asked  to  see  more 
of  my  work. 

More  of  my  work!  It  wasn't  work,  for  there  was  no 
heavy  lifting  whatever  connected  with  writing  stories;  so 
I  asked  them  to  wait  a  minute  until  I  could  show  them 
some. 

That  is  about  how  it  happened.  I  wrote  nights  and 
Sundays,  in  street  cars  and  on  railroad  trains. 

It  was  easy  and  I  liked  it  immensely,  for  I  could  sit  down 
while  I  was  doing  it. 

When  my  acquaintances  from  the  foundries  joshed  me 
about  being  an  author  I  didn't  resent  it.  I  winked  and  told 
them  that  I  had  been  in  the  gold  business  in  Alaska,  had 
taken  up  the  brick  business  in  Illinois  and  was  now  endeavor 
ing  to  combine  the  two.  They  considered  it  a  very  good 
joke,  but  all  the  time  I  knew  there  was  no  joke  about  it. 


28  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

VIRGINIA  FRAZER  BOYLE 

Of  course,  the  verses  written  over  a  modest  little  "nom" 
and  printed  in  local  newspapers  do  not  count.  Their 
reward  was,  sometimes,  not  even  thanks;  and  with 
what  unfailing,  malicious  joy  a  certain  compositor  maimed 
their  poetical  feet.  Through  all  these  years,  the  anguish  of 
it  is  potent  yet. 

The  first  real  thrill  might  be  considered  as  twins,  for, 
after  much  waiting,  two  came — within  a  week  of  each  other. 
"After  the  Family  Reunion"  has  never  been  included  in  a 
collection  of  verse,  but  it  brought  a  little  blue  slip  signed 
"Harper  &  Brothers,"  making  payable  to  me  the  sum  of 
fifteen  dollars.  As  I  unfolded  the  letter  and  discovered  it, 
I  had  a  guilty  sense  of  having  defrauded  that  firm  out  of 
exactly  that  amount.  When  no  one  was  observing,  I  looked 
it  over  several  times  a  day,  trying  to  get  used  to  it — when 
a  second  slip  arrived  (I  think  it  was  a  yellow  one,  this 
time),  bearing  the  signature  of  the  Treasurer  of  The  Cen 
tury  Company,  for  sixty  dollars,  in  payment  for  my  first 
story,  entitled  "How  Jerry  Bought  Malviny." 

Now  I  was  sure  that  The  Century  Company  had  de 
frauded  themselves,  for  this  tale  was  only  a  plantation  story 
which  had  been  current  in  the  family  always.  If  I  had 
lived  less  than  a  thousand  miles  from  New  York,  I  am  not 
sure  but  that  I  would  have  taken  the  train  and  personally 
explained  to  both  editors.  My  father  and  mother  only 
smiled  when  I  confided  to  them  my  doubts  of  the  intrinsic 
value  of  my  commodities.  So,  I  took  the  matter  to  my 
paternal  grandmother — a  charming  lady  of  the  old  school, 
who  had  always  dominated  every  branch  of  the  family, 
though  most  amiably.  I  will  confess  that  I  would  rather 
have  faced  a  battery  with  my  proposition  than  my  grand 
mother.  But  I  knew  that  she,  of  all  the  family,  would 
express  some  positive  opinion.  While  I  almost  held  my 
breath,  the  note  of  the  Harper  acceptance  was  read,  with 
evident  appreciation.  Eagerly,  I  extended  the  little  blue 
slip — when  I  saw  the  lines  about  her  mouth  tighten. 


VIRGINIA    FRAZER   BOYLE  29 

"Send  it  back!  Tell  them  that  you  appreciate  it — but 
send  it  back  at  once!" 

"But,  Grandmother — ,"  I  interrupted. 

"Virginia — hear  me!  If  you  receive  remuneration  for 
the  work  of  your  hands  or  your  brain —  you  can  no  longer  be 
called  a  gentlewoman." 

"But — Grandmother — you  wrote,  and  so  did  Aunt  Mat!" 

Grandmother  folded  her  hands.  "In  North  Carolina,  in 
my  day,  no  gentlewoman's  writing  appeared  in  the  prints. 
I  did  write,  it  is  true,  but  I  kept  my  poetry  in  my  hat  trunk 
and  made  neat  pen  copies  only  by  urgent  request.  In  your 
Aunt  Mat's  day  times  had  changed;  she  did  print,  but  only 
under  a  nom  de  plume,  and  she  would  have  spurned  pay 
ment  for  any  of  her  songs.  No,  my  daughter — send  back 
the  check  and  request  that  they  print  your  poem  unsigned." 

The  oracle  had  spoken,  and  I  held  the  Century  check, 
while  Henry  Mills  Alden  received  the  first  letter;  how — 
I  often  heard  in  after  years.  In  fact,  I  had  the  pleasure  of 
seeing  again,  in  his  private  office  in  Franklin  Square,  my 
first  business  letter  to  Harpers'.  The  check  was  returned 
with  the  kindest  of  personal  notes  stating  that  magazines 
of  the  status  of  Harpers'  did  not  print  anything  without 
paying  for  it  and  did  not  publish  anonymously  unless  there 
was  a  good  reason  for  it.  It  was  needless,  then,  to  return 
the  Century  check. 

Seventy-five  dollars  lay  on  my  conscience  and  burned  in 
my  pocket;  and  though  it  was  Christmas  time  I  felt  that 
I  had  no  right  to  appropriate  it  through  the  usual  channels. 
As  a  propitiation  to  my  grandmother's  ideals  the  amount 
was  evenly  divided  between  a  Working-Girls'  Home,  then 
much  in  need  of  funds,  and  an  orphan  asylum.  The  dear 
old  Grandmother  of  The  Old  South,  whose  own  last  poem 
was  written  in  her  ninetieth  year  and  printed  after  her 
death  over  her  own  name,  lived  long  enough  to  become 
reconciled  to  the  new  order  of  things. 

In  conclusion:  it  is  astonishing  how  soon  one  becomes 
commercialized — for  all  this  happened  many,  many  years 
ago. 


30  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

BERTON  BRALEY 

I've  been  looking  over  my  manuscript  record  lately,  and 
noting  with  a  melancholy  interest  how  many  dear,  dead 
magazines  there  are.  Harpers'  Weekly,  Human  Life, 
Puck,  Hampton  s,  Ladies'  World,  the  Home  Sector,  Every 
Week,  the  Illustrated  Sunday  Magazine,  the  Associated 
Sunday  Magazines — the  list  is  long  and  in  the  main  hon 
orable.  There  is  much  noble  blood  on  the  hands  of  the 
Paper  Trust  and  the  Congress  that  passed  the  zone  second- 
class  postage  bill. 

Eheu  and  also  fugaces!  My  personal  interest  in  this 
chronicle  of  the  departed  is  due  to  the  discovery  that  most 
of  these  periodicals  purchased  material  from  me — and  died 
shortly  afterwards. 

And  looking  back  more  years  than  I  care  to  mention,  I 
recall  that  My  First  Appearance  was  in  a  little  magazine 
which  disappeared  from  circulation  shortly  following  my 
contribution.  I  seem  to  have  begun  my  career  as  an  acces 
sory  before  the  fact  of  its  demise. 

The  magazine  was  a  little  periodical,  weekly,  I  think — no 
pun  intended — published  in  Chicago  and  entitled  The 
American  Youth.  At  the  age  of  eleven  I  wrote  a  fairy 
story  which  explained  the  color  of  the  grass  as  due  to  a 
conjoined  attack  of  jealousy  and  tears  on  the  part  of  a 
mythical  people  who  inhabited  the  world  before  grass  was 
even  thought  of.  As  I  related  it,  these  people  were  small 
but  exceedingly  frequent,  and  they  became  so  jealous  of  the 
happiness  of  a  certain  prince  and  princess,  that  they  all 
turned  green  with  jealousy  and  then  wept  so  hard  that  they 
stuck  themselves  fast  in  the  mud  created  by  their  tears. 

I  tried  it  on  The  Youth's  Companion  and  St.  Nicholas 
but  my  explanation  of  grass  failed  to  take  root.  Then  I 
sent  it  to  The  American  Youth  and  in  a  few  weeks  received 
ten  copies  of  the  magazine  with  my  story  in  actual  print, 
thuswise ; 


BERTON    BRALEY  31 

WHY  THE  GRASS  Is  GREEN 

a  Fairy  Story  by  Berton  Braley 

(Eleven  Years  Old) 

Proud! — I'll  say  so!  That's  the  greatest  thrill  I've  ever 
got  out  of  writing,  and  I  don't  mind  admitting  that  even 
now  my  stuff  in  print  always  affords  me  a  bit  of  a  thrill — 
it  looks  different  and  more  interesting,  somehow.  Well, 
doesn't  yours?  If  not  I'm  sorry  for  you. 

But  I  didn't  continue  as  a  successful  boy  author — per 
haps  the  avenues  of  publicity  for  boy  authors  were  not  as 
broad  as  they  seem  to  be  nowadays.  I  was  eighteen  before 
I  made  my  second  appearance  in  print  in  anything  except 
school  magazines.  That  second  appearance  was  in  Judge 
— and  my  verses  brought  me  three  dollars.  I  didn't  frame 
the  check,  I  spent  it.  I've  never  seen  the  check  I  could 
afford  to  frame. 

My  third  appearance — All  right,  Mr.  Toastmaster,  I'm 
through.  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  I  thank  you. 

GELETT  BURGESS 

Editors,  with  me,  were  an  acquired  taste.     It  was  not 
until  long  after  I  had  ceased  to  be  one  that  I  began 
to  like  them.     The  fact  is  I  began  at  the  top  of  the 
ladder  as  a  publisher  and  worked   gradually  down   till   1 
became  a  mere  author. 

At  the  top?    No,  now  I  think  of  it,  I  began  all  over  the 
ladder  at  the  age  of  fourteen  as  publisher,  editor,  printer  and 
contributor  of  The  Clyppir,  a  magazine  two  inches  square. 
This  was  my  first  printed  work.     I  printed  it  myself. 
Now  I  have  often  heard  the  amateur  speak  wonderingly 
of  "breaking  into"  the  periodicals.     There  is  only  one  way, 
and  that  is  the  same  way  one  breaks  into  a  house.    Don't  try 
the  big  front  door — jimmy  a  side  window!     That's  what 
I  did.     Listen. 


32  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

The  Boston  Transcript  used  to  print  (and  may  print 
now)  every  Saturday  a  page  of  "Notes  and  Queries."  You 
know  those  foolish  questions  asked  by  the  B.  Q.  X.'s  and 
Veritasses  who  keep  yellowed  scrap  books  and  "recall"  his 
toric  things?  Well,  being  a  clever  youth,  I  noticed,  that 
most  of  these  queries  began  like  this:  "Can  you  give  me 
the  rest  of  the  poem  beginning,  etc.,  etc."  Aha!  There 
was  my  chance. 

Forthwith  I,  also,  wrote: 

"Dear  Editor: 

"Who  is  the  author  of  the  poem  commencing  'The 
dismal  day  with  dreary  pace'  and  can  you  give  the 
verses?  F.  E.  C." 

This  being  duly  printed,  I  sent  my  "follow-up"  letter: 
"Editor  of  the  Transcript: 

"The  author  of  the  poem  commencing  'The  dreary 
day'  etc.,  is  Frank  Gelett  Burgess,  and  the  whole  poem 
is  as  follows: 

The  dismal  day  with  dreary  pace 

Hath  dragged  its  tortuous  length  along; 

The  gravestones  black,  and  funeral  vase 
Cast  horrid  shadows  long. 

Oh,  let  me  die,  and  never  think 

Upon  the  joys  of  long  ago; 
For  cankering  thoughts  make  all  the  world 
A  wilderness  of  woe. 

Yours  truly, 

B.  G.  F." 

Of  course  it  was  printed.  You  see  it's  easy  when  you 
know  how.  To  this  day,  this  is  the  only  sure  way  I  know 
of  getting  a  manuscript  printed.  (Except  one;  for  which, 
read  on,  read  on!)  To  be  sure  I  wasn't  paid  for  it,  but 
as  I  have  said  I  didn't  then  like  editors. 

This  success  emboldened  me,  as  a  sophomore,  to  indite 
(free?  Yes!)  the  depraved  confession  of  a  haschisch  eater, 


GELETT    BURGESS  33 

with  diagrams  to  make  it  scientific,  for  The  Tech;  but 
owing  to  the  revolting  nature  of  the  article  I  dared  not 
sign  it  lest  my  mother  question  the  facts. 

The  first  battle  between  Literature  and  Civil  Engineering 
was  won  by  the  lady,  when  I  wrote  my  first  story  "The  23rd 
Seance"  for  the  Boston  Budget.  After  that  I  took  less  and 
less  interest  in  Railroading,  and  building  bridges  in  the 
Andes. 

Followed  (we're  not  using  "there  followed"  this  season, 
you  know),  a  brief  career  with  a  Sunday  School  paper; 
hurry,  reader,  hurry,  we're  almost  there,  in  which  I  ap 
peared  as  a  poe't  and  essayist. 

We  come  now  to  my  first  really  professional  work — an 
honest-to-goodness  crook  yarn. called  "The  Exit  of  Dress 
Suit  Bob"  printed,  and  yes  actually  paid  for,  by  that  famous 
weekly  which  has  been  called  the  Cradle  of  the  Modern 
Californianistic  School  of  Fiction — in  short,  The  Wave. 
And  she  did  wave  in  those  days  too,  with  Frank  Norris  and 
Juliet  Wilbor  Tompkins  and  Hubert  Henry  Davies  and 
Will  Irwin  and  Geraldine  Bonner  and  James  Hopper  and 
me!  As  the  editor  is  still  alive  and  a  member  of  the 
League  I  shall  not  name  my  price.  But  at  that  time  it 
wasn't  the  money,  it  was  the  principle  of  the  thing — much 
like  writing  for  this  book. 

And  then  came  The  Lark,  another  easy  side  door  to 
Literature.  For  two  blessed  years  I  was  my  own  editor  and 
never  refused  a  single  one  of  my  own  contributions,  not 
even  "The  Purple  Cow."  This  is  another  infallible  way  to 
succeed  in  writing.  No  stops,  a  through  express  train  to 
Fame — unless  you  happen  to  get  ditched.  But  at  that,  it's 
hard  work  at  75  a  month,  and  it  tries  one's  literary  con 
science. 

I  never  saw  a  really  honest  editor.  I  never  hope  to  see 
one.  But  I  can  tell  you,  anyow,  I'd  rather  see  than  be  one! 


34  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

ELLIS  PARKER  BUTLER 

I  believe  the  first  piece  I  ever  had  published  was  a  set  of 
verses  on  some  local  topic,  printed  in  the  Muscatine 
Journal. 

I  sent  them  anonymously  and  I  think  the  name  I  signed 
was  "Ayah,"  which  was  what  my  kid  sister  used  to  call  me, 
not  being  able  to  say  "Ellis."  I  was  then  only  a  small  boy. 

I  remember  more  clearly  my  second  effort,  which  was 
an  imitation  of  "The  splendor  falls  on  castle  walls,"  and 
described  a  local  cyclone.  There  were  four  or  five  verses 
of  this.  This  was  sent  to  the  same  paper  anonymously; 
and  one  reason  I  recall  it  so  vividly  is  because  I  discovered, 
after  I  had  mailed  it,  that  I  had  used  an  envelope  in  which 
I  kept  all  my  supply  of  unused  postage  stamps.  To  lose 
the  stamps  was  a  calamity,  and  the  Journal  did  not  use  the 
poem. 

The  first  piece  for  which  I  was  paid  was,  I  remember, 
written  when  I  was  a  small  boy  still.  It  was  called  "Shorty 
and  Frank's  Adventure,"  and  I  sent  it  to  one  of  the  numer 
ous  cheap  juveniles  then  extant,  and  received  fifty  cents  for 
it,  all  in  one  cent  postcards!  After  that  I  wrote  and  wrote. 
The  Waverly,  which  sent  a  dozen  copies  of  itself  in  pay 
ment,  and  revised  my  stories  with  a  free  hand,  used  a  lot 
of  my  stuff.  Life,  Truth,  Puck,  The  New  England  Maga 
zine,  and  The  Midland  Monthly,  of  Des  Moines,  began 
sending  small  checks  for  short  verse,  and  The  National  Maga 
zine  paid  a  few  dollars  for  short  prose,  but  the  first  real 
check  I  received  was  from  The  Century  Magazine.  I  think 
this  was  for  eighty  dollars,  and  for  a  short  humorous  piece 
called  "My  Cyclone-Proof  House." 

In  those  days  I  used  to  have  a  memorandum  book  with 
thirty-one  lines  to  the  page  and  until  a  manuscript  had 
been  to  thirty-one  publications  I  did  not  think  it  was  hope 
less.  Now  I  use  a  card  system  and  don't  never  think  no 
manuscript  is  never  hopeless,  not  never  at  all. 

I  have  never  been  an  "intellegencia"  or  an  "intellectual" 
or  a  "genius."  I've  been  a  hard-working  hack.  I've  earned 
what  I  got. 


EDWARD    CHILDS    CARPENTER  35 

EDWARD  CHILDS  CARPENTER 

Before  I  was  even  acquainted  with  the  inside  of  a  theatre, 
before  I  even  knew  what  a  play  was,  I  discovered,  in 
the  family  library,  the  complete  works  of  a  certain 
dramatist  commonly  known  as  William  Shakespeare,  and 
complete  in  one  huge  volume. 

It  was  not  the  text  which  first  challenged  my  youthful 
attention;  it  was  the  character  of  the  engraved  illustrations. 
Never  had  it  been  my  good  luck  to  behold  so  many  scenes 
of  battle,  murder  and  sudden  death  assembled  between  two 
covers.  It  is  true  that  there  were  a  few  representations  of 
the  pastoral  lover,  the  rope-ladder  lover  and  the  dying  lover  ; 
but  the  artist,  even  when  illustrating  the  comedies,  had  an 
unerring  instinct  for  the  bloody  moment,  such  as  "Kill 
Claudio!"  and  "A  sentence!  Come,  prepare!"  It  was  an 
invitation  to  an  orgie  of  gore! 

I  began  with  "Macbeth."  The  verse  annoyed  me  at  first. 
I  thought  it  was  a  fool  way  to  write.  And  of  course  there 
were  many  words  and  phrases  that  meant  nothing  to  me; 
but  I  found  the  story  and  thought  it  great  stuff.  Although 
I  read  most  of  the  others,  "Macbeth,"  my  first  love,  was 
my  last;  and  I  still  think  it  the  greatest  play  that  ever 
was  written. 

In  those  days  of  my  initiation  I  entertained  the  belief 
that  a  play  meant  the  stories  of  Shakespeare  exclusively; 
and  I  remember  my  shock  when  later  on  I  learned  that 
plays  could  be,  nay  were,  written  by  other  people;  but  I 
scorned  them  in  my  heart  as  mere  imitators  of  a  great 
original. 

At  that  time  the  theatre  was  a  closed  door  to  me.  Once 
a  resplendent  aunt  carried  me  off  to  a  place  of  red  plush 
and  gold  paint  filled  with  lights  and  music  and  people, 
where  something  very  exciting  was  going  on,  but  whether  it 
was  a  performance  of  "Pinafore"  or  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin" 
I  do  not  know.  It  has  only  remained  a  delightful  blur  and 
never  was  in  any  way  associated  in  my  mind  with  the 
Works  of  William  Shakespeare. 


36  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

What  has  all  this  to  do  with  my  maiden  effort?  Every 
thing!  From  reading  the  Bard's  plays,  I  advanced — -when 
I  reached  the  age  of  rebellion — to  seeing  them  performed; 
and  from  seeing  them  performed,  sprang  the  desire  to  write 
some  like  them.  I  tried.  It  wasn't  so  easy.  Still,  I  kept 
on  writing,  saying  nothing  to  any  one  except  my  elder 
brother,  a  sympathetic  soul. 

He  consulted  an  actor  friend,  who  advised  that  if  I  really 
wanted  to  write  plays  I  should  go  on  the  stage  and  learn 
something  about  the  practical  application  of  the  art.  Well, 
Shakespeare  himself  was  an  actor.  Why  shouldn't  I  fol 
low  his  example? 

At  that  time  I  was  about  seventeen,  and  Mr.  Otis  Skinner 
was  wearing  the  Shakespearian  halo  with  debonnaire  dis 
tinction.  I  said  to  myself:  "I  will  go  and  act  with  him." 

Wires  were  pulled,  and  one  Sunday  morning  I  found 
myself  face  to  face  with  Mr.  Skinner  at  his  hotel.  I  frankly 
told  him  that  I  wanted  to  become  a  member  of  his  com 
pany  and  to  prove  how  worthy  I  was,  I  began  reciting 
Richard  Ill's  soliloquy,  "Now  is  the  winter  of  our  dis 
content,"  etc. 

When  I  had  finished  Mr.  Skinner  nodded  a  kindly,  "Yes." 
This  I  took  for  encouragement.  "Now,"  I  said,  "I'll  give 
you  something  else."  Whereupon,  I  recited  a  long  speech 
ending  thusly: 

"May  all  the  love  I've  borne  him  change  to  hate, 
May  pity  from  my  breast  forever  fly, 
And  in  its  place  let  cruelty  be  lodg'd  ; 
Aye,  for  the  time,  may  I  forget  my  sex — 
And  tune  all  thoughts  to  further  my  revenge!" 

Mr.  Skinner  looked  puzzled.  "It  sounds  like  Shake 
speare,"  he  said,  "but  I  don't  seem  to  recall  it.  What's  it 
from?" 

I  smiled  at  Mr.  Skinner  benevolently.  "Oh,  that? — 
that's  from  something  of  my  own!" 


EDWARD    CHILDS    CARPENTER  37 

"Ah,  I  see — you  are  a  playwright''  acknowledged  Mr. 
Skinner,  evidently  impressed  with  this  fragment  from  my 
maiden  effort — a  tragedy,  I  am  inclined  to  believe. 

Its  title  I  have  forgotten,  but  I  think  it  might  well  have 
been  called  "Lay  Off  Macduff,  or  Banquo's  Little  Sister." 

As  for  Mr.  Skinner,  he  somehow  managed  to  go  on  acting 
without  me. 

ROBERT  W.  CHAMBERS 

There  was  no  romance  connected  with  my  maiden  ef 
fort. 
The  story  was  written  in  the  evenings  to  mitigate 
the  ennui  of  being  obliged  to  live,  for  a  while,  in  Germany. 

During  daylight  hours  I  was  busy  painting.  At  night  I 
preferred  a  pad,  pencil,  and  my  own  company  to  any  al 
ternative  which  Bavaria  had  to  offer. 

So  it  happened  that  I  perpetrated  the  paper-covered  novel 
ette  called  "In  the  Quarter." 

I  had  nothing  particularly  in  view  when  I  did  it.  Any 
excellence  in  it  was  due  to  my  Mother's  criticisms  of  my 
own  unwieldy  and  lumbering  language. 

When  it  was  finished,  my  Father,  who  was  departing  for 
New  York,  took  it  with  him.  I  don't  think  that  he  thought 
much  of  it.  His  was  that  polished  culture  consequent  upon 
intimate  knowledge  of  all  that  is  best  in  classic  literature. 
My  Mother  was  even  more  widely  read  in  several  modern 
languages,  and  I  realize,  now,  that  she  tolerated  the  result 
of  my  efforts  merely  because  she  hoped  it  might  lead  to 
something  better. 

As  I  remember,  now,  all  the  good  old  conservative  pub 
lishers  declined  to  avail  themselves  of  the  opportunity  to 
pitchfork  me  into  the  literary  arena  where  critics  raged  and 
ravened.  It  remained  for  an  obscure  Chicago  publisher  to 
publish  the  story  in  paper  and  pay  me,  ultimately,  $150  for 
selling  a  rather  large  edition  and  then  several  other  editions. 

Why  anybody  bought  the  book  is  beyond  me.    Eventually 


38  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

the  publisher  became  bankrupt  and  I  bought  in  the  book 
and  the  plates,  destroyed  the  latter,  and  have  never  re-issued 
the  book. 

I  am  sorry  I  cannot  offer  a  more  romantic  and  more 
interesting  article  for  this  series.  But  Truth  is  mighty  and, 
sometimes,  is  told. 

RICHARD  WASHBURN  CHILD 

If  I  understand  that  I  am  to  record  the  first  printed  work 
of  the  author  in  question,  I  turn  to  an  illustrated  "His 
tory  of  the  Civil  War,"  completed,  original  sources 
indicate,  at  the  age  of  seven. 

This  opus  was  privately  printed.  It  was  printed  by  me 
without  the  use  of  a  press  or  other  mechanical  devices,  ex 
cepting,  of  course,  the  lead  pencil.  The  original  copy  remains 
preserved  in  the  archives  of  my  mother.  Inasmuch  as,  and 
for  good  and  sufficient  other  reasons,  it  is  catalogued  under 
Fiction,  its  title,  "The  History  of  the  Civil  War,"  as  in 
the  case  of  other  works  of  contemporary  and  elder  his 
torians,  conceals  with  becoming  modesty  an  imaginative 
faculty  of  no  mean  flying  ability.  In  passing,  it  may  be 
said  that  the  author  waited  for  an  appropriate  period  to 
pass  to  gain  a  perspective  view  before  undertaking  his  labors ; 
the  author  was  born  in  1881. 

The  prodigious  though  unprinted  maiden  effort  persisted 
throughout  childhood. 

Looking  back  upon  collected  works  of  that  early  period 
the  critic  would  pick  out  as  noteworthy  a  long  and  it  must 
be  confessed  laborious  work  entitled  "A  Trip  Down  the 
Mississippi,"  completed  at  the  age  of  twelve.  The  skill  of 
combining  information  from  the  Encyclopaedia  as  to  every 
town  from  the  source  of  the  River  to  the  Gulf,  with  the 
fanciful  adventures  of  two  boys  who  occupy  the  foreground 
of  the  plot,  was  of  no  mean  calibre.  Plot,  characters  and 
canoe,  were  never  able  to  pass  a  Burlington,  a  Vicksburg  or 
a  Baton  Rouge,  until  the  author  had  uncovered  all  the 


RICHARD   WASHBURN    CHILD  39 

exports,  bank-clearings  and  latest  population  of  these 
famous  ports.  It  was  a  novel  filled  with  municipal  ob 
struction.  Future  generations  may  give  it  a  regard  equal  to 
any  which  may  be  conferred  upon  a  certain  short  story 
entitled  "The  Man  with  a  Penetrating  Eye"  or  an  "Essay 
of  Bigots"  or  upon  a  poem  or  two  of  the  same  period. 

The  author  must  have  experienced  a  subsequent  era  of 
normality.  Like  a  growing  tree  he  put  forth  few  blossoms 
in  a  period  when  he  yearned  to  weigh  enough  to  play  on 
the  school  eleven  and  yet  felt  lighter  whenever  he  touched 
hands  with  a  certain  damsel  of  fourteen  who  after  some 
twenty  odd  years  now  outweighs  the  author  by  several  stone. 

The  Madness  seized  him  again  only  when  he  was  chal 
lenged  to  seek  editorship  on  a  school  paper;  it  has  never 
released  him  since.  He  wrote  prolificacy.  He  reported 
baseball  games,  penned  editorials,  produced  quips,  short 
stories,  articles  and  all  that  fills  into  the  cracks  between. 
College  journalism  was  only  a  larger  pond.  Not  even  all 
the  college  professors  and  assistants  of  the  Harvard  Col 
lege  Department  of  English,  skilled  as  they  were  then  in 
killing  off  the  creative  impulse  on  the  one  hand,  or  raising 
the  lavender  sterility  of  affected  criticism  on  the  other,  could 
cure  the  malady. 

So  far  for  honor  and  art's  sake  and  the  Urge! 

Then  came  the  Boston  Transcript  in  all  the  ruffles  of  her 
Saturday  edition,  flouncing  her  checks;  and  the  Saturday 
Evening  Post  flirting  for  a  story  written  by  a  Senior;  and 
The  Youth's  Companion  giggling  behind  her  fan  for  the 
favor  of  juveniles;  the  great  McClures  sweetly  singing; 
and  Collier  s  with  thousands  of  dollars  offered  as  trophy 
for  knights  and  ladies  in  literary  jousts. 

I  am  a  hardened  sinner  now.  Not  yet  forty,  I  am  among 
the  oldest  of  veterans  who  still  make  appearances  in  the 
books  and  magazines.  The  fact  that  I  am  a  lawyer  helps 
my  case  but  little. 

And  looking  back,  I  cannot  see  that  my  effort  was  ever 
very  maidenly. 


40  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

IRVIN  S.  COBB 

It  is  hard  for  me  to  say  just  what  my  maiden  effort  was. 
Perhaps  it  would  be  nearer  the  truth  were  I  to  confess 
that  there  were  several  of  them — all  maidens;  all  tend 
ing  the  vestal  fires  of  my  earlier  artistic  ambitions. 

I  cannot  recall  the  time  in  childhood  when  the  mere  sight 
of  a  sheet  of  clean  paper  failed  to  arouse  in  me  a  desire  to 
make  black  marks  on  it.  My  earliest  known  photograph 
shows  me,  at  the  tender  age  of  twenty  months,  lying  flat 
upon  my  stomach — I  could  lie  flat  upon  my  stomach  then — 
scribbling  upon  a  sheet  of  paper  with  a  stub  of  pencil. 

Tradition  has  it  that  on  this  occasion,  having  been  dressed 
in  my  Sunday  best  and  taken  under  parental  escort  to  the 
photographer's  establishment,  I  resolutely  refused  to  be  in 
terested  in  the  promise  of  the  officiating  functionary  that  a 
little  bird  was  about  to  come  out  of  the  black  box.  It 
would  seem  that,  at  the  moment,  I  cared  little  for  ornitho 
logical  phenomena.  It  is  also  recorded  that  I  howled,  open 
ing  my  mouth  widely. 

I  am  constrained  to  believe  that  when,  at  that  age,  I 
opened  my  mouth  widely  I  must  have  looked  a  good  deal 
like  a  detachable  rim. 

Now,  my  parents  did  not  desire  to  have  an  interior  view 
of  me.  They  knew  already  that  I  possessed  superior  acoustic 
qualities,  and  had  no  wish  to  preserve  the  revealed  aspect  of 
my  personal  sounding-board  with  the  aid  of  the  camera's 
eye.  Rather,  they  longed  that  I  might  be  shown  with  my 
features  composed ;  for  already  the  Home  Beautiful  move 
ment  was  spreading  through  America. 

But  I  declined  to  be  beguiled  by  cajolery,  blandishments, 
or  the  prospect  of  beholding  foolish  little  birds  flying  loosely 
about.  I  have  been  told  that  I  wept  unabatedly  and  whole- 
souledly  until  my  mother,  remembering  a  predilection 
already  evidenced  by  me,  put  in  my  fingers  a  scrap  of  lead- 
pencil.  Immediately  I  became  calm  and  a  faded  photograph, 
which  now  is  treasured  in  the  family  archives,  was  the  result. 

I  imagine  that  I  was  trying  to  draw  rather  than  to  write, 


IRVIN    S.    COBB  41 

for  I  started  out  in  life  to  be  an  artist.  As  far  back  as  I 
can  remember  I  drew  pictures  of  sorts.  Pictures  which  I 
drew  at  the  age  of  four  years  old  have  been  preserved. 
I  doubt  whether  Michael  Angelo  drew  any  better  at  the  age 
of  four  than  I  did;  and  judging  by  some  of  his  canvasses 
which  I  have  seen,  I  am  constrained  to  believe  that  Rubens, 
in  his  maturity,  did  not  know  much  more  about  drawing  the 
outlines  of  the  human  figure  than  did  I  ere  I  attained  my 
fifth  birthday.  One  main  difference  between  Rubens  and 
me  was  that  I  eventually  knew  enough  to  quit  trying  and  he 
never  did. 

I  grew  into  boyhood  with  the  smell  of  printer's  ink  in 
my  eager  young  nose.  My  favorite  uncle,  for  whom  I  was 
named  and  whose  especial  protege  I  was,  edited  a  country 
newspaper,  and  I  spent  most  of  my  leisure  hours  in  his 
cluttered,  odorous  and  altogether  fascinating  print-shop.  So 
it  was  only  natural  when,  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  I  left  school 
by  request  of  the  principal,  that  I  should  find  employment 
in  a  newspaper-office  in  my  native  town. 

My  main  design  and  intent  then  was  to  be  an  illustrator 
and  a  cartoonist.  Already  I  had  disposed  of  three  or  four 
crude  drawings  to  Texas  Siftings,  and  had  sold  at  least  one 
alleged  caricature  to  a  long-since  deceased  weekly  publica 
tion  in  New  York,  whose  very  name  I  have  forgotten.  For 
the  caricature  I  received  in  payment  the  sum  of  one  dollar. 
Texas  Stftlngs  forgot  to  send  a  check.  But  it  printed  my 
pictures. 

Presently  I  began  writing  bits  of  descriptive  matter  to 
go  along  with  the  pictures  I  drew  for  the  home  paper,  so 
that  the  subscribers,  reading  what  I  wrote,  no  longer  might 
say  that  my  drawings  were  the  worst  things  which  appeared 
in  the  paper.  As  time  passed  I  found  myself  writing  more 
and  drawing  less.  Soon  I  quit  drawing  altogether  and 
devoted  my  journalistic  energies  to  writing. 

Approximately  eighteen  years  elapse. 

I  was  now  a  member  of  the  staff  of  a  New  jYork  evening 
newspaper.  I  wrote  news  and  news-specials,  covered  as 
signments,  did  a  column  of  so  called  humor  for  the  editorial 


42  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

page,  and  an  occasional  signed  contribution  for  the  magazine 
section  of  the  Sunday  edition.  A  good  deal  of  what  I 
wrote  might  properly  be  called  fiction  but  it  purported  to 
be  fact.  Many  of  the  fictions  which  get  into  the  New 
York  evening  papers  masquerade  under  headlines  as  facts. 

This  brings  us  up  to  the  summer  of  1911.  One  day, 
offhand,  I  made  a  bet  with  a  friend  that  I  could  write  a 
piece  of  fiction  of  a  serious  nature  and  that  when  it  was 
written  I  could  sell  it  to  a  magazine.  My  vacation  started 
the  following  week.  In  the  last  two  days  of  that  vacation 
I  wrote  the  first  draft  of  my  first  story.  When  I  had 
revised  it  somewhat  I  offered  it  to  the  Saturday  Evening 
Post,  and  the  Saturday  Evening  Post  accepted  it  and  pub 
lished  it  and  I  won  my  bet,  and  gave  up  earning  an  honest 
living  as  a  newspaper  reporter  and  turned  fiction-writer. 
The  name  of  the  story  was  "The  Escape  of  Mr.  Trimm." 

I  do  not  know  whether  "The  Escape  of  Mr.  Trimm" 
may  rightly  be  called  my  maiden  effort,  but  I  do  know 
what  the  graphic  art  escaped  when  I  decided  to  take  up 
literature  rather  than  drawing. 


EDMUND  VANCE  COOKE 

I  think  my  first  "effort"  must  have  preceded  my  "maiden 
hood"  considerably.     Not  that  I  lisped  in  numbers,  like 
the  w.  k.  example  of  Pope,  but  I  think  I  stuttered  a 
trifle.    Anyway,  I  vaguely  recall  an  "effort,"  when  I  was  in 
my  childish  days,  the  remains  of  which  are  more  fragmentary 
than  the  "efforts"  of  Sappho.     (Q.V. — would  any  one  call 
hers  "maiden"  efforts?)     Be  that  as  it  may,  the  only  frag 
ment  of  my  "effort"  which  I  recall  at  all  ran  something  like 
this: 

"There  was  a  boy  named  Eddie  Cooke, 
Who  was  going  to  forsook 
And  take  with  him  a  little  book." 

This  was  stark  realism  (there  was  a  boy,  a  journey  and 


EDMUND   VANCE   COOKE  43 

a  book!)  but  ft  is  not  without  pride  that  I  note  that,  even 
then,  I  sturdily  turned  my  face  away  from  vers  libre. 

But  as  this  effort  never  saw  printer's  ink,  perhaps  it  would 
be  more  in  keeping  to  consider  the  first  products  which  shone 
forth  from  a  typed  page.  I  say  products  because  I  cannot 
quite  recall  which  was  maid  and  which  was  matron  of  these 
two  "poems"  which  found  publication  just  before  my  early 
teens.  I  am  sure  their  sentiments  were  wholly  commendable 
and  highly  moral,  if  a  bit  didactic.  One  exhorted  mankind 
in  general 

"Never  give  up  in  despair." 

and  the  other  pointed  sympathetically  the  somewhat  obvious 
lesson 

"When  a  person  is  falling,  they're  easily  thrown." 

It  was  a  great  mortification  to  have  it  discovered  to  me  that 
I  had  made  a  grammatical  blunder  in  the  title  which  was 
also  the  refrain,  but  I  was  greatly  cheered  a  score  of  years 
later  by  an  article  in  The  Writer,  by  Forrest  Morgan,  in 
which  he  contended  vigorously  for  the  use  of  "they"  as  the 
third-person  indeterminate  pronoun.  As  Mr.  Morgan  was 
then  an  editor  and  is  now  (I  believe)  librarian  at  Hartford, 
Connecticut,  and  as  he  was  my  beau  ideal  of  the  meticulous 
and  accomplished  scholar,  I  felt  somewhat  absolved  for  my 
early  indiscretion  in  English. 

However,  there  was  another  "maiden  effort,"  and  this  one 
bore  the  hall  mark  of  success;  nay,  rather  the  dollar  mark, 
for  it  was  the  first  "effort"  which  brought  an  answering 
check. 

Though  I  had  now  attained  the  ripe  age  of  fourteen  years, 
I  was  a  constant  reader  of  Golden  Days,  a  periodical  for  the 
youth  of  that  period ;  and  naturally  when  I  wandered  afield 
my  first  literary  pot-shots  were  directed  towards  the  editor 
whose  product  I  knew  best. 

I  remember  vividly  that  it  took  several  efforts  to  land  the 
real  "effort" ;  and  for  the  life  of  me  I  could  not  see  why  my 


44  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

products  were  rejected  when  inferior  ones  were  printed  in 
every  issue.  Incidentally,  I  have  never  quite  recovered  from 
that  attitude  of  mind. 

But  when  the  first  acceptance— and  check — did  come! 
Well,  we  have  bandied  billions  so  freely  around  the  world 
of  late  that  I  find  it  hard  to  realize  that  my  first  payment 
was  a  check  for  only  five  dollars,  for  never  did  any  piece 
of  paper  look  so  large  or  so  important — to  me. 

The  title  of  this  maiden  effort  was  "Shoveling  Snow,"  its 
theme  the  adventures  of  a  small  boy,  poor  but  not  too  proud 
to  work;  but  as  for  the  rest  it  is  lost  to  the  world  forever. 
As  far  as  I  was  able  to  learn  the  story  was  never  printed. 
"What  do  you  make  of  that,  Watson?" 

Do  editors  accept  stories  from  budding  geniuses  for  pur 
poses  of  encouragement,  or  from  pure  philanthropy?  Or, 
are  they  of  such  a  canny  race  that  they  thus  obtain  life  sub 
scriptions  to  their  periodicals?  If  Golden  Days  still  existed 
I  presume  I  should  still  be  buying  it  week  by  week  in  the 
hope  of  reveling  in  my  maiden  effort,  redolent  of  that  fresh 
print  flavor  so  dear  to  the  nostrils  of  all  authors,  particularly 
all  authors  of  maiden  efforts. 

MARY  STEWART  CUTTING 

I  am  tempted  to  ask  in  plain  American,  in  response  to  the 
appeal    of    the    Authors'    League:    "Whatcher    mean, 
Maiden  Effort?"     There  seem  tp  have  been  so  many 
efforts  of  that  kind! 

Looking  back,  perhaps  the  most  salient  one  was  a  poem 
written  in  my  teens  for  which,  one  afternoon  when  I  was 
alone  in  the  apartment,  I  received  an  acceptance  from  the 
editor  of  Lippincott's  Magazine,  with  a  check  for  Three 
Dollars  enclosed. 

I  can't  begin  to  tell  you  how  wonderful  and  unbelievable 
and  delicious  this  seemed  to  me.  There  was  no  one  at  hand 
to  whom  I  could  express  my  excitement — I  threw  myself 
down  on  my  bed  and  laughed  and  laughed,  uncontrollably — 
and  read  the  letter  and  the  check  over  and  over  again  with 


MARY    STEWART    CUTTING  45 

increasing  joy.  Then  I  arose  and  got  the  poem,  "Days" 
from  my  desk  and  re-read  it  with  awe — it  was  almost  too 
beautiful!  I  could  see  why  that  editor  paid  me  three  dol 
lars  for  it — noble  sum! 

Suddenly  I  felt  that  I  couldn't  wait  another  moment  be 
fore  spending  that  money.  Money  was  no  good  unless  you 
spent  it!  My  father  wouldn't  be  home  until  night  to  cash 
the  check  for  me,  so  I  put  on  my  hat  and  coat  and  went 
down  town — I  had  a  quarter  in  my  purse — and  bought  three 
dollars'  worth  of  some  lacy  ornamentation  I  coveted,  and 
had  the  purchase  charged  to  my  father's  account;  and  went 
home  flushed  with  triumph. 

I  can  see  now  that  even  then  I  showed  that  artistic  spirit 
which  is  always  such  a  help  to  one  in  the  stupidities  of  life. 

But  when,  long  afterward,  I  started  out  on  my  profes 
sionally  intentioned  magazine  career,  there  ensued  a  space 
of  two  years  in  which  it  is  already  a  matter  of  public  record 
that  I  sent  out  manuscripts  sixty-three  times,  and  had  three 
accepted.  Every  single  thing  I  attempted  seemed  the  Maid- 
enest  sort  of  an  Effort !  There  were  not  sixty-three  different 
stories,  you  understand;  but  that  figure  covered  the  number 
of  times  those  dozen  or  more  differing  manuscripts,  each 
experimenting  in  subject  matter,  went  out  by  mail  with 
enclosed  stamps  for  return. 

The  first  one,  indeed,  "The  Coupons  of  Fortune,"  was 
accepted  by  Mr.  Alden  with  kind  words,  little  delay  and  a 
check  for  forty  dollars. 

But  the  next  story,  attempted  in  a  humorous  vein,  which 
went  to  that  editorial  office,  remained  there  for  six  whole 
weeks.  At  the  expiration  of  that  time  my  cousin,  Mr.  Wil 
liam  A.  Eddy,  and  a  friend  of  Mr.  Alden's  approached  the 
latter  for  what  we  hoped  would  be  favorable  news.  You 
were  always  told  that  when  manuscripts  were  kept  longer 
than  usual  there  was  a  presumption  of  ultimate  acceptance. 

But  a  personal  search  resulted  in  finding  that  this  par 
ticular  tale,  entitled  "Henry,"  did  not  conform  to  rule. 
"Henry"  had  slipped  behind  a  drawer  in  a  secretary.  When 
retrieved,  Mr.  Alden  said,  with  a  reminiscent  smile:  "Yes, 


46  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

I  remember;  this  was  a  very  amusing  story"  and  handed  it 
back  to  my  cousin. 

Another  maiden  effort  which  attempted  the  pathetic  fared 
in  a  somewhat  similar  way.  I  went  for  it  myself,  this  time, 
for  the  great  pleasure  of  seeing  Mr.  Gilder.  Even  when 
editors  don't  take  your  "stuff,"  it's  a  pleasure  to  talk  to  them 
— they're  so  awfully  nice  to  you. 

Mr.  Gilder  said  of  my  latest  endeavor:  "This  brought 
tears  to  even  my  hardened  editorial  eyes,"  and  handed  it  back 
to  me. 

All  the  rejected  manuscripts  went  in  other  magazines 
after  a  while ;  but  do  you  wonder  that  each  venture  in  a  new 
line  seemed  a  distinctly  maiden  effort? 

That  was  before  I  struck  my  gait  as  a  chronicler  of  the 
most  usual  and  commonplace,  in  the  Stories  of  Married 
Life. 

Never  shall  I  forget  my  surprise  and  gratitude  when  Mr. 
S.  S.  McClure  sent  me  word  that  he  would  "take  all  of 
that  kind"  that  I  could  write.  And,  wonder  of  wonders, 
when  Mr.  Franklin  B.  Wiley,  of  The  Ladies'  Home  Journal, 
actually  came  all  the  way  from  Philadelphia  to  annex  me 
as  a  contributor! 

But  to  this  day  I  haven't  won  entirely  past  the  feeling  that 
each  story  I  start  out  on  is  still  in  the  nature  of  a  maiden 
effort.  (You  are  never  quite  sure  that  it  is  going  to  write 
itself  as  you  dreamed  it  in  the  first  glow  of  its  inception. 

In  those  olden  days  failure  was  never  daunting  to  me. 
I  could  always  meet  it  hardily,  as  an  adversary  that  simply 
had  to  be — and  could  be — overcome. 

But  I  am  free  to  confess  that  some  measure  of  success 
rather  scares  me  a  little.  Can  I  do  as  well  on  this  story 
as  they  seem  to  think  I  did  in  the  one  before? 

That  is  the  question,  you  see — one  is  forever  beginning 
anew! 


CONINGSBY   DAWSON  47 

CONINGSBY  DAWSON 

I  have  been  wondering  how  maiden  an  effort  has  to  be  if  it 
is  to  be  deemed  worthy  to  be  called  a  maiden  effort.    If 
appearing  in  print  is  the  test,  my  first  effusion  was  pub 
lished  at  an  age  when  Daisy  Ashford  was  an  obscure  nur 
sery  amateur. 

I  was  eleven  when  a  long  since  defunct  magazine  brought 
out  a  pious  allegory  from  my  youthful  pencil,  entitled  "The 
Angel's  Sin."  What  it  was  all  about  I  have  forgotten,  but 
the  opening  sentences  still  bring  a  blush  of  shame: 

"Heaven  was  silent,  for  one  had  sinned.  Before  the 
Throne  of  God  a  prostrate  figure  lay;  but  the  Throne 
was  wrapped  in  cloud." 

Not  such  a  bad  beginning  for  eleven!  So  thought  my 
sisters  and  my  cousins  and  my  aunts.  Even  I,  who  am  my 
harshest  critic,  am  of  opinion  that  it  was  not  so  bad. 

It  is  not  its  badness  that  makes  me  blush  to  this  day,  but 
its  reception  by  an  important  portion  of  my  at  that  time  very 
limited  public.  Though  I  was  sufficiently  adult  to  write 
with  confidence  of  what  they  did  in  heaven,  I  was  still  in 
the  process  of  acquiring  an  education.  I  went  to  school,  in 
fact,  and  one  of  my  schoolmates  stumbled  across  a  copy  of 
that  unfortunate  magazine. 

He  learned  my  contribution  by  heart.  He  taught  it  to 
various  of  his  friends.  Through  the  foggy  evenings  of  an 
entire  winter  he  and  his  gang  followed  me  home,  reciting 
in  chorus  "Heaven  was  silent,  for  one  had  sinned,"  etc.  It 
was  in  this  way  that  I  gained  my  first  lesson  concerning  the 
tribulations  of  authorship,  a  subject  in  which  I  am  now  pro 
foundly  versed. 

My  first  maiden  effort  in  book  form  was  a  volume  of 
poems,  sponsored  by  no  less  a  house  than  the  Macmillan 
Company.  I  was  twenty-two  when  it  saw  daylight  and  re 
ceived  as  financial  recompense  the  sum  of  twenty  dollars, 
which  certainly  did  not  defray  the  expenses  of  typewriting. 


48  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

My  maiden  effort  as  a  novelist  appeared  one  year  later 
and  yielded  me  about  a  hundred  dollars. 

During  the  next  six  years  I  published  in  all  three  novels, 
seven  volumes  of  literary  criticism  and  innumerable  short 
stories.  From  my  entire  output  for  that  period  I  did  not 
receive  enough  to  satisfy  my  tailor — and  yet  every  book  I 
wrote,  save  one,  was  published. 

It  was  not  until  I  was  thirty  that  I  struck  luck  with  "The 
Garden  Without  Walls."  So  little  impression  had  my  earlier 
work  made  that  it  was  hailed  as  a  first  novel  and  is  to  this 
day  regarded  as  my  maiden  effort.  But  my  genuine  maiden 
effort  had  been  perpetrated  nineteen  years  before  and  atoned 
for  by  a  little  pale-faced  boy,  who  fled  nightly  from  the 
Philistines  through  the  foggy  streets  of  London. 

EDITH  BARNARD  DELANO 

My  literary  ambition  began,  and  came  very  near  end 
ing,  at  the  age  of  eight.  I  wrote  a  "Life  of  Queen 
Elizabeth."  I  think  it  must  have  been  all  of  two 
hundred  words  in  length,  and  it  was  carefully  inscribed  in  a 
small  book  which  I  had  made  out  of  my  mother's  best  note- 
paper  and  tied  at  the  back  with  pale  blue  embroidery  silk. 
I  think  I  realized  that  it  was  rather  brief;  but  I  know  I 
thought  it  a  highly  valuable  contribution  to  the  world's  in 
formation.  I  loved  it ;  I  carried  it  with  me,  hidden  in  a  book 
or  a  pocket,  wherever  I  went — and  that  was  the  reason  of 
the  tragedy  that  came  near  ending  forever  my  literary  activ 
ities. 

For  I  dropped  my  "Life  of  Queen  Elizabeth"  in  school ! 
An  older  girl  found  it,  called  a  crowd — to  me  it  seemed  a 
jeering  mob — around  her  at  recess,  and  read  it  aloud,  even 
elaborating  on  the  oddities  of  spelling.  For  twenty  years 
I  made  no  further  attempt  at  authorship;  for  twenty  years 
writing  was  the  last  thing  in  the  world  that  I  wanted  to  do. 

Then,  one  summer's  day,  my  morning  mail  brought  me 
a  circular  from  an  ambitious  young  man  who  had  started 
an  Author's  Agency.  I  have  always  wondered  how  on  earth 


EDITH    BARNARD    DELANO  49 

that  circular  came  to  me,  and  whether  the  Author's  Agent 
covered  the  entire  country  with  his  circulars;  but  it  was  a 
most  appealing  document,  and  made  authorship  seem  very 
easy.  And  I  was  exceedingly  hard  up  at  the  time  and  had 
not  formed  the  habit  of  earning — and  the  habit  of  spending 
was  born  in  me! 

"Goodness!"  I  thought  as  I  read  that  circular,  "if  that's 
all  you  have  to  do !" 

So  I  did  it.  I  wrote  a  story,  and  called  it  "A  Declaration 
of  Independence,"  copied  it  neatly  on  my  typewriter — I  had 
used  one  all  my  life — and  mailed  it  to  the  agent.  In  six 
weeks  I  had  a  check  for  thirty-five  dollars;  The  Woman's 
Home  Companion,  then  a  small  magazine,  had  taken  the 
story  and  paid  the  colossal  sum  of  forty  dollars  for  it! 

There  was  nothing  to  it!  So  I  wrote  another,  and  an 
other,  and  still  that  agent  mailed  me  checks.  My  luck  held 
through  the  tenth  story;  if  it  had  not,  I  am  sure  I  should 
never  have  written  any  more. 

I've  had  plenty  of  wholesome  jolts  since  then,  and  I've 
known  many  agents  of  many  kinds.  But  luck  and  the  agent 
did  it  for  me.  When  they  failed — and  the  agent  held  out 
longer  than  the  luck — I  began  really  to  work  and  to  study 
the  job  that  seemed  to  have  been  wished  on  me;  and,  after  a 
few  more  years,  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  it  wasn't  the 
worst  job  in  the  world,  anyway;  and  by  that  time  I  had  no 
inclination  for  any  other.  So  I  am  still  doing  it;  but  it's 
fiction  for  me,  and  no  more  history — though  I  retain  my 
tenderness  for  Queen  Elizabeth. 

LEE  WILSON  DODD 

It  seemed  a  simple  thing  to  recover;  one  had  only  to  think 
back  a  little.     But  it  proved  a  long,  dim  trail  when  I 
sought  to  follow  it.    And,  finally,  I  had  almost  to  psy 
cho-analyze  myself  to  drag  out  from  the  Unconscious  my 
very  firstest  effort  to  get  my  toes  on  the  literary  ladder. 

Yes;  it  was  before  the  summer  I  spent  with  my  cousin, 
Ralph  Dawson,  on  his  father's  farm  in  Forest  County,  Pa. — 


50  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

so  I  couldn't  have  been  nine  yet.  That — the  one  perfect 
summer  of  my  life — fixes  my  ninth  birthday  for  me.  So  I 
must  have  been  seven  or  eight ;  seven,  I  rather  think.  I  was 
going  to  a  private  school  in  New  York  City  and  didn't  know, 
fortunately,  all  that  I  was  missing.  Still,  New  York  was 
different,  then;  our  part  of  it.  It  had  some  of  the  qualities 
of  a  country  town.  You  could  play  ball  safely  enough 
right  out  in  the  middle  of  the  street.  And  the  cops  let  you. 
However,  all  this  seems  to  have  very  little  to  do 
with  my  maiden  effort. 

What  had  most  to  do  with  it  was  my  father's  library. 
Father— one  of  the  gentlest  and  most  lovable  of  men — was 
what  we  have  since  learned  to  call  "a  soulless  corporation 
lawyer."  And  as  some  evidence  of  his  soullessness,  perhaps, 
his  chief  interest  in  life  lay  in  the  reading  of  good  books. 
By  which  I  mean  good  books — i.e.,  those  written  by  the  best, 
wisest,  wittiest,  humanest  men  the  world  has  known.  He 
had  a  library  full  of  such  books,  all  their  bindings  rubbed 
from  use,  all  their  pages  cut  and  thumbed;  and  they  were 
ranged  on  open  shelves,  and  even  a  little  boy  could  reach 
the  top  shelf  from  a  chair. 

There  were  no  forbidden  volumes,  either.  Rabelais  was 
there  for  what  a  little  boy  could  make  of  him,  which  wasn't 
much;  and  Herbert  Spencer  was  there  for  what  a  little  boy 
could  make  of  him,  which  was  just  nothing  at  all.  And 
Scott  and  Dickens  and  Thackeray  were  there,  and  all  the 
poets  you  ever  heard  of,  including  Byron  and  Shelley  and 
Swinburne. 

And  then  there  were  whole  shelves  of  impossible  stuff 
with  titles  like  "Work  and  Wages,"  etc.  And  there  were 
stuffy,  solemn-looking  histories;  but  some  of  them  had  pic 
tures — Plutarch  had  pictures.  And,  perhaps  best  of  all, 
there  was  "Chamber's  Book  of  Days!" 

So,  naturally,  smoudging  around  a  library  like  that — 
which  was  also  the  family  sitting  room — and  hearing  father 
or  mother  or  Aunt  Sis  read  out  loud  (to  us — my  sister  and 
me — or  to  each  other),  or  overhearing  them  discuss  books 
they  had  been  selfishly  reading  to  themselves  .  .  .  well, 


LEE    WILSON    DODD  51 

naturally,  one  grew  up  sort  of  bookish  and  queer  without 
knowing  exactly  at  any  time  just  what  was  the  matter  with 
one.  If  one  had  been  brought  up  in  a  normal  family  solely 
interested  in  gossip  and  Bridge,  for  example,  so  many  later 
things  might  have  been  different — and  on  the  whole  sim 
pler  to  attend  to. 

But  the  maiden  effort  was  due,  I  feel  almost  certain,  to 
a  reading  from  Shakespeare.  I  am  equally  certain  that  the 
reading  had  not  been  from  "Antony  and  Cleopatra";  it 
had  probably  been  from  "Twelfth  Night."  "Antony  and 
Cleopatra"  had  been  glanced  through  privately,  I  fancy.  At 
any  rate,  I  determined  to  write  a  play  about  Antony  and 
Cleopatra  for  my  sister  and  myself  to  act.  My  sister  had 
coppery  hair,  and  so  did  Cleopatra — so  the  casting  was  ob 
viously  predestined. 

And  the  play  was  duly  composed  during  the  course  of  a 
late  afternoon  study  hour.  I  can  remember  little  about  it; 
but  blank  verse  was  unquestionably  attempted,  and  there 
were  plenty  of  thees  and  thous  in  it.  Cleopatra,  let  me  re 
mind  you,  died  of  a  snake  bite ;  so  you  see  all  the  picturesque 
possibilities.  My  sister  was  just  as  keen  to  try  them  out  as 
I  was. 

That's  why  we  both  developed  sore  throats  that  night; 
we  were  all  choked  up  by  morning  and  felt  perfectly  limp. 
We  didn't  see  how  we  could,  either  of  us,  be  expected  to  go 
to  school.  Mother  rather  thought  it  wouldn't  hurt  us  to 
go;  she  didn't  seem  to  believe  there  was  much  the  matter 
with  us.  However,  she  finally  yielded,  dosed  us  and  gargled 
us,  and  then  went  a-marketing — no  doubt  with  her  tongue 
in  her  cheek. 

Then  we  got  busy — with  her  bed  for  a  stage.  We  man 
aged  a  really  superb  production  and  rendition  of  my  play, 
considering  our  enfeebled  state.  Cleopatra  died  grandly, 
with  much  flourishing  of  an  improvised  serpent.  The  ser 
pent  was  really  the  clou  of  the  play  and  I  wish  I  could  re 
member  just  how  we  constructed  him.  My  impression  is 
that  he  was  chiefly  tied-in  bath-towel  with  shoe-button  eyes ; 
but  I  give  it  doubtfully.  And  since  I  have  been  requested 


52  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

to  stick  to  facts,  the  rest  must  be  silence.  But  you've  no 
idea  how  I  regret  this  stupid  restriction.  I  could  have 
drawn  such  an  amusing  picture  of  mother's  return! 

HENRY  IRVING  DODGE 

When  I  was  a  little  boy  I  was  what  they  called  an 
omnivorous  reader.  There  were  only  a  few  books 
in  our  village  and  I  read  them  all  as  fast  as  I  could 
beg,  borrow  or  steal  them.  I  read  "Ivanhoe"  when  I  was 
six.  Since  then  I  have  never  opened  that  famous  novel,  yet 
the  characters  are  just  as  clear  to  me  as  if  I  had  only  yes 
terday  laid  it  aside.  I  remember  how  impatient  I  was,  even 
at  that  age,  that  Scott  didn't  sooner  vanquish  the  villain 
and  bring  the  lovers  together  in  one  forever-after  embrace. 

Then,  I  read  "Gold  Hunter's  Adventures,"  "Oliver 
Twist,"  "Hard  Cash,"  all  the  Mother  Goose  stuff,  Hans 
Andersen's  stories,  the  Beadle  dime  novels,  Poe,  Irving, 
"Lorna  Doone,"  and  "Toilers  of  the  Sea."  I  believe  I 
was  influenced  by  each  and  every  one  of  them.  As  fast  as 
I  would  finish  a  story  I  would  want  to  write  one  just  like 
it  and  wondered  why  I  couldn't. 

Just  how  much  the  foregoing  masters  were  responsible 
for  my  maiden  effort,  I  don't  know.  They  started  me  go 
ing.  Then,  they  must  have  abandoned  me.  The  result  of 
their  joint  effort — expressed  through  my  pen — was  a  piece 
called  "Justice  at  Last,"  a  title  which  I  calculated  would 
make  the  world  sit  up  and  take  notice — I  was  fourteen  at 
the  time.  I  forgot  to  mention  Cinderella — my  favorite 
fiction  character,  after  David  Copperfield.  Cinderella  was 
my  inspiration,  really.  I  pited  her  and  loved  her  and  made 
up  my  mind  that  I  could  vindicate  her  even  better  than  did 
her  creator. 

In  "Justice  at  Last"  the  most  pronounced  villain  was  a 
designing,  withered  old  man  who  was  very  rich,  and  corre 
spondingly  lacking  in  bowels  of  compassion  for  anybody. 
There  were  two  villainesses  who  shall  be  hereinafter  men 
tioned.  Aforesaid  mean  old  man  had  a  granddaughter,  a 


HENRY    IRVING   DODGE  53 

kind  of  slavey — the  London  kind  that  cleans  up  the  scullery 
and  polishes  the  lodgers'  boots.  Also  he  had  two  daughters; 
the  third  daughter,  mother  to  the  scullery  maid,  I  had 
killed  off — I  don't  remember  just  how — in  order  that  afore 
said  scullery  maid  might  be  an  orphan  and  otherwise  made 
as  desolate  as  possible,  for  dramatic  purposes.  Nellie — that 
was  the  orphan's  name — was,  of  course,  treated  very  badly 
by  the  two  aunts.  But  Nellie  had  one  consolation — her 
mother  used  to  visit  her  in  dreams  and  tell  her  things. 

Now,  can  you  guess  the  end?  I'll  bet  you  can,  if  you're 
a  movie  fan,  like  me,  for  it's  a  typical  movie  plot. 

Well,  the  two  wicked  aunts  schemed  and  contrived  and 
finally  influenced  the  mean  old  grandfather  to  make  a  will 
leaving  them  everything  and  cutting  Nellie  off  with  a  shil 
ling.  But  somehow  just  before  he  died  the  old  man  got  wise 
to  their  wicked  motives  and  secretly  made  another  will.  I 
realized  in  writing  the  story  that  a  second  will,  nullifying 
the  first,  was  not  startlingly  original,  so  I  determined  to  make 
the  rest  of  the  yarn  absolutely  unique  in  the  matter  of  origi 
nality. 

Now,  the  old  man  was  carefully  watched  by  the  two 
aunts.  He  didn't  have  any  place  that  he  could  think  of  to 
hide  this  will — that  is,  for  a  long  time  he  didn't.  Then  he 
remembered — and  here  was  the  stroke  of  genius  hereinbe 
fore  referred  to — a  clock,  one  of  those  tall  old  fellows  with 
a  wonderful  face  and  heavy  weights.  That  clock  had  a 
false  bottom  to  it.  The  old  man  secreted  his  second  will 
in  it.  In  this  will  he  left  everything  to  Nellie,  the  beautiful 
scullery  maid.  But  before  he  had  a  chance  to  tell  her  any 
thing  about  it,  he  died. 

The  two  wicked  aunts,  as  soon  as  they  could  do  so  with 
a  due  regard  for  what  people  would  say,  prepared  to  set 
Nellie  adrift  on  the  cold,  cold  world.  She  was  to  go  the  fol 
lowing  day.  But  that  night  she  had  a  dream  and  as  usual 
her  mother  came  to  visit  her.  In  a  twinkling  she  "tipped" 
Nellie  off  to  the  fact  of  the  new  will  and  its  hiding  place. 
Nellie  forthwith,  after  decorously  waiting  for  her  mother 
to  depart,  jumped  from  her  bed,  scurried  across  the  icy 


54  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

floor  in  her  bare  feet,  opened  the  door  of  the  faithful  time 
piece,  which — to  make  the  thing  more  weird — was  just 
striking  two,  reached  down  and  grabbed  the  precious  docu 
ment. 

In  the  morning,  when  her  two  wicked  aunts  appeared  to 
push  her  out  into  the  cold — it  was  snowing,  for  dramatic 
purposes — Nellie  turned  the  tables  on  them  and  then  munifi 
cently  and  grandiloquently  offered  them  a  corner  of  the 
kitchen  to  live  in. 

"Justice  at  Last"  was  published  in  some  village  paper 
up  the  Hudson  River — I  don't  remember  where.  One 
thing  I  do  remember:  it  did  not  bring  me  the  fame  I  had 
dreamed  of.  I  secured  a  number  of  copies  and  sent  them 
to  my  friends  but  did  not  receive  grateful  acknowledgment 
from  any  of  them. 

WALTER  PRICHARD  EATON 

My  maiden  effort  was  a  "History  of  the  Heavens." 
I  was  not  only  the  author  of  this  Wellsian  work, 
but  the  illustrator,  printer  and  binder.  The  edition 
was  limited  to  one  copy.  I  was  eight  at  the  time  of  pub 
lication.  At  about  the  same  date  I  wrote  several  other 
works  of  fiction,  also,  but  my  parents,  unable  to  pre-vision 
"The  Young  Visiters,"  saved  none  of  them. 

When  I  was  about  ten,  I  spent  my  Saturdays  in  the  office 
of  the  local  weekly  paper  learning  to  set  type;  and  then  my 
father  bought  me  a  small  press  (eight  by  six)  and  enough 
brevier  and  job  fonts  to  enable  me  to  get  out  a  monthly 
paper  of  my  own,  of  four  pages.  In  two  years  it  reached 
a  circulation  of  nearly  two  hundred  and  I  was  charging 
fifteen  cents  an  inch  for  ads. 

I  find  on  investigation  that  my  editorials  were  strongly 
moral  in  tone,  and  inclined  to  be  conservative.  I  suppose  I 
had  more  fun  with  this  press  and  my  little  paper  than  I 
have  ever  had  since,  and  it  certainly  fixed  in  my  mind  the 
ideal  of  journalism  as  a  profession  so  firmly  that  thereafter 
I  never  questioned  what  I  was  going  to  do. 


WALTER    PRICHARD    EATON  55 

I  began  to  do  newspaper  work  while  I  was  still  in  col 
lege,  and  also  wrote  for  a  school  text-book  a  brief  life  of 
John  Paul  Jones,  for  which  I  was  paid,  I  remember  $100. 
I  went  from  college  directly  into  a  newspaper  office  where 
I  had  already  worked  an  entire  summer  and  began  to  grind 
out  copy  as  a  matter  of  course.  So  I  fear  that  I  have  never 
really  known  the  thrill  of  a  maiden  effort.  The  nearest 
thing  to  it,  I  suppose,  was  my  pleasure  at  selling  an  essay 
to  The  Aflantic  just  after  I  had  come  to  New  York  and 
joined  the  Tribune  staff.  But  even  this  pleasure  was  con 
siderably  tempered  by  the  accustomed  smell  of  ink  in  my 
nostrils. 

Much  has  been  written  about  the  relations  between 
journalism  and  literature.  I  can  only  say  that  the  news 
paper  man  has  an  instinctive  certainty  that  what  he  writes 
for  his  paper  is  sometimes  literature  and  sometimes  not, 
according  to  his  success  in  bringing  off  the  scene  he  tries 
to  evoke,  and  he  can  always  honestly  say  he  would  rather 
"pull  it  off"  in  the  news  columns  than  in  a  magazine  or  be 
tween  covers. 

There  is  no  pose  about  this.  It  is  true  of  every  good 
reporter  I  ever  knew.  He  may  reform  and  become  a  writer 
of  fiction  or  plays,  but  in  his  heart  he  will  never  have  the 
same  affection  even  for  his  first-born  book  or  drama  that 
he  has  for  certain  stories  that  lived  a  month  or  a  year  in 
the  memory  of  the  city  room. 


GEORGE  ALLAN  ENGLAND 

This  is  a  very  weighty  matter  to  decide.     From  infancy 
I  was  always  making  efforts  in  the  writing  line,  but 
nobody  seemed  to  know  it.    These  were  mostly  poet 
ical  and  shall  not  be  quoted  here.    Thus  I  gain  at  once  the 
reader's  good-will  and  gratitude. 

The  first  really  ambitious  effort,  however,  took  the  form 
of  prose  and  laid  me  open  to  the  unfounded  charge  of 
plagiarism. 


56  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

It  was  a  novel  in  XXII  chapters,  called  "An  Adventure 
in  Alaska"  and  was  written — at  the  age  of  eleven — on 
slimpsy,  blue-lined  paper,  with  a  very  sharp  pen.  Nobody 
would  believe  I  "made  it  up"  myself  because  there  were  so 
many  ice-floes,  polar  bears  and  things.  It  didn't  seem  rea 
sonable  that  a  boy  of  eleven  should  have  so  many  bears  and 
icebergs  in  his  system,  all  his  own.  The  maw  of  relentless 
Time  has  devoured  all  but  four  and  a  half  chapters  of  this 
immortal  work;  an  irreparable  loss  to  Art,  equaled  only  by 
that  which  Art  sustained  when  Nero  short-armed  himself 
with  a  sword. 

After  the  icebergs  followed  years  of  Poesy  in  which  June 
and  moon,  birth  and  earth,  love  and  dove  and  all  the  rest 
of  'em  ran  riot.  But  it  wasn't  until  I  got  to  Harvard  that 
the  curtain  rose  in  a  really  professional  manner.  The  verses 
I  printed  in  The  Harvard  Illustrated  can  hardly  be  said  to 
count,  because  I  was  on  the  editorial  staff  of  that  magazine 
and  could  run  anything  I  wanted  to — an  abviously  unfair 
advantage  to  take  of  a  perfectly  inoffensive,  struggling,  un 
dergraduate  paper.  To  return,  however,  to  our  real  maiden 
effort.  .  .  . 

This  was  "The  Race  of  the  Mighty,"  and  dragged  down 
500  francs  from  the  Paris  Edition  of  the  New  York  Herald 
— and  in  those  days  of  1901,  500  francs  were  real  money; 
yea,  even  unto  about  $100.  And  twenty  years  ago  a  dollar 
would  buy  something.  I  remember  that  hundred  looked 
bigger  to  me  then  than — but  let  the  imagination  have  free 
rein. 

The  way  it  happened  was  thus:  the  Paris  Herald  had 
offered  the  500  francs  for  the  best  translation  in  verse  of 
Gaetan  de  Meaulne's  poem  "La  Course  des  Grands 
Masques."  This  was  a  spirited  description  of  an  auto  race, 
'cross-country.  Slathers  of  people  from  all  over  the  world 
sent  in  versions.  I  dug  out  one,  by  the  aid  of  much  sweat, 
a  Thesaurus  and  a  French  vocabulary  of  technical  terms. 
I  also  wrote  a  slang  version  of  the  poem,  and  sent  them 
both  off  to  Paris,  after  which  I  forgot  them. 

One  day  a  'phone  message  came  in  from   a  newspaper, 


GEORGE  ALLAN  ENGLAND  57 

asking  me  if  I  was  G.  A.  E.,  etc.,  and  so  on.  Yes,  I  was. 
"Well,  then,  we're  sending  a  man  out  to  interview  you, 
as  the  winner  of  etc.,  etc."  Tableau,  and  astonishments. 
Life  has  had  few  moments  comparable  to  that. 

The  Herald  not  only  handed  me  the  500,  but  also  printed 
both  my  versions — the  slang  one  under  the  title  of  "The 
Run  of  the  Goggled  Sports";  and  no  end  of  publicity  fol 
lowed.  From  then  on  I  kept  writing  with  renewed  cour 
age,  and  I  haven't  been  doing  much  of  anything  since — 
that  is,  nothing  I  care  to  have  talked  about. 

Incidentally,  though  I  have  written  tons  of  verse  ever 
since,  I  never  got  another  hundred  for  a  poem,  and  never 
expect  to.  For  a  maiden  effort  to  establish  a  record  is  some 
thing.  Let  mine  R.  I.  P. 

EDNA  FERBER 

I've  always  lied  about  my  maiden  effort.  I've  had  to. 
I  couldn't  remember  its  name.  I  know  when  I  wrote 
it,  and  why  I  wrote  it,  and  how.  I  even  vaguely  recall 
what  the  thing  was  about,  if  any.  But  its  name  is  gone. 
During  the  ten  years,  or  thereabouts,  of  my  writing  career, 
when  people  have  asked  me  about  the  first  thing  I  ever 
wrote  I've  always  said  with  lying  sweetness,  "A  short  story 
called  'The  Homely  Heroine.'  It  came  out  in  Everybody's 
magazine  and  it's  a  better  short  story  than  I  can  write 
today." 

I've  said  it  so  often,  and  with  such  engaging  modesty, 
that  I  almost  believe  it  myself. 

"The  Homely  Heroine"  was  my  second  story,  and  it  was 
and  is  good,  and  I'll  probably  go  right  on  saying  it's  my 
first,  once  I've  got  this  confession  off  my  conscience.  Maybe 
a  confession  like  this  is  what  I've  needed  in  order  to  de 
velop.  Perhaps  that's  the  Freudian  reason  for  my  failure 
to  achieve  deathless  fame  in  the  past  few  years. 

That  first  appeared  in  Smith's  Magazine  with  a  nice  red 
cover  bearing  a  picture  of  one  of  those  half-witted  red  and 
white  girls  with  china-blue  eyes.  It  was  written  (the 


58  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

story,  I  mean)  after  Robert  W.  Chambers'  best  style  and 
I  feel  safe  in  saying  that  I  think  he  would  have  recognized 
it  anywhere  as  a  sort  of  idiot  stepchild. 

It  wasn't  so  awfully  bad,  as  first  stories  go.  But  it  cer 
tainly  wasn't  any  good. 

It  was  about  a  young  lady  who  lived  in  a  small  town 
and  took  the  train  for  Milwaukee,  and  almost  missed  it,  and 
heard  the  train  whistle,  and  ran  for  it,  and  forgot  her  hat 
and  had  to  ride  all  the  way  to  Milwaukee  and  get  off  the 
train  and  everything  without  a  headcovering!  And  there 
was  a  young  man  on  the  train  with  these  here  now  kindly 
quizzical  eyes.  That,  so  help  me,  was  what  the  story  was 
about.  And  I  suppose  they  married  each  other,  though  I 
don't  know.  Certainly  one  has  to  do  more  than  go  about 
hatless  in  order  to  attract  the  young  man  of  today. 

Life  was  so  much  simpler  ten  years  ago.     Or  I  was. 


JAMES  MONTGOMERY  FLAGG 

When  I  was  sixteen  I  persuaded  Tudor  Jenks,  who 
was  then  an  editor  of  St.  Nicholas,  to  let  me  go  as 
war  correspondent  of  that  magazine  to  the  World's 
Fair  at  Chicago.  The  World's  Fair  was  an  enormously  sen 
sational  event  to  regular  human  beings  in  those  days — so  to 
a  kid  of  sixteen  it  was  epochal  and  amazing  and  I  felt  im 
portant  with  my  assignment. 

I  wrote  about  everything  except  the  terrible  Houchy- 
Kouchy  dance  that  was  creating  such  a  furore  in  the  Mid 
way  Plaisance.  I  debated  solemnly  with  myself  if  I  should 
enter  those  fearful  gates  and  witness  the  frightful  thing. 
Whether  my  article  would  be  complete  without  some  de 
scription  of  what  was  "intriguing"  the  crowds  worried  me. 

I  remember  buying  my  first  walking  stick — a  gnarled 
thing  from  which  the  paint  came  off  on  my  hands  during 
the  muggy  evenings  that  I  stalked  through  the  Fair  grounds 
— I  didn't  have  the  nerve  to  be  seen  with  such  a  symbol  of 
adolescence  in  the  day-time.  But  my  feet  took  me  past  the 


JAMES    MONTGOMERY    FLAGG  59 

Houchy-Kouchy  building  and  I  decided  from  all  I  had 
heard  I  might  well  ignore  that  exhibition! 

So,  I  filled  a  fat  note-book  with  impressions,  and  they 
boiled  it  down  at  the  St.  Nicholas  office  to  fifteen  hundred 
words,  and  paid  me  fifteen  dollars.  I  don't  remember 
whether  or  not  they  ever  printed  any  of  that. 

And  it  was  St.  Nicholas  that  first  published  my  drawings. 

I  had  always  made  drawings  from  the  age  of  two — of 
everything  imaginable ;  cows,  starting  at  the  tail  and  evolving 
that  useful  animal  from  that  end;  portraits  of  my  father, 
laying  great  stress  on  getting  a  likeness  of  his  fashionable 
beard,  brushed  gaily  to  starboard  and  port;  skinny  Zulus 
with  blood-lustful  faces — these  were  mildly  discouraged  by 
my  parents  as  even  their  adult  hearts  missed  several  beats 
upon  looking  at  these  savages  of  mine,  but  they  nevertheless 
dated  them  and  pigeon-holed  them  in  a  sideboard  drawer; 
menageries,  complete;  Indians,  "dudes,"  jokes,  and  it  was 
quite  lately  that  I  was  presented  with  a  pencilled  portrait  I 
had  made  at  three  of  a  terrible  pointed  Vandyke  beard, 
labelled  "Jesus" — inspired  by  no  religious  fervor,  I  am  cer 
tain. 

As  a  special  attention  to  esteemed  visitors  a  huge  pile  of 
my  works,  done  on  yellow  pad  paper,  (and  my  output  was 
large),  was  taken  from  the  sideboard  drawer  and  shown, 
one  by  one,  by  my  father  with  an  attempt  at  a  deprecatory 
manner. 

My  father  realized  at  an  early  stage  of  his  parenthood 
that  there  was  no  use  in  mapping  out  a  useful  career  for 
me.  He  saw  that  I  had  decided,  probably  before  I  met 
him  and  my  mother,  that  I  had  dedicated  my  life  to  the 
encouragement  of  the  manufacturers  of  pencils  and  paper. 
I  am  happy  to  remember  that  at  no  time  during  my  resi 
dence  with  my  parents  was  there  ever  a  hint  that  I  should 
do  any  thing  but  draw. 

I  was  very  careful  in  training  my  parents,  and  on  the 
whole  found  them  obedient  and  respectful. 

I  did  not  care  for  the  society  of  children,  and  around 
the  age  of  twelve  my  two  pals  were  Tudor  Jenks  of  the 


60  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

St.  Nicholas  Magazine  and  Professor  Frederick  Starr,  then 
in  charge  of  the  Anthropological  Department  of  the  Natural 
History  Museum. 

I  helped  Professor  Star  unwrap  outlandish  pottery  and 
trophies  from  Africa — I  still  remember  the  queer  wild  smell 
that  accompanied  these  savage  importations — and  made 
drawings  of  them  for  his  books. 

When  I  was  about  twelve  I  took  a  batch  of  drawings  in 
to  St.  Nicholas,  and  Tudor  Jenks  showed  a  kindly  interest 
in  me  and  them,  as  he  did  for  countless  young  people  with 
artistic  and  literary  ambitions;  and  as  he  knew  a  lot  about 
drawing  he  helped  me.  He  selected  about  ten  out  of  the 
cartload  I  laid  on  his  desk  and  made  me  redraw  them  with 
Mr.  Higgins*  well-known  India  ink  and  printed  them  on  a 
full-page  of  the  magazine.  I  received  my  first  professional 
payment  for  them,  ten  dollars — in  bills — the  dear,  delight 
ful  Century  Company  always  paid  CASH  in  those  days! 

I  walked  dizzily  home,  swerving  to  the  left  on  my  way 
to  acquaint  an  uncle  with  the  astonishing  tale.  After  that 
I  haunted  the  St.  Nicholas  and  Century  offices,  chumming 
with  editors  in  all  the  many  departments  and  spending  hours 
pulling  out  gigantic  drawers  choked  with  marvelous  origi 
nals.  I  am  glad  I  couldn't  look  into  the  future  and  know 
that  most  used  original  illustrations  would  be  of  less  value 
than  virgin  paper! 

Some  times  I  went  with  Mr.  Clark,  then  managing  editor 
of  St.  Nicholas,  to  ball  games.  I  never  could  see  what  it 
was  about  that  spectacle  that  excited  that  gentleman,  as  I 
was  bored  stiff  with  them.  I  remember,  once,  he  took  a 
huge  camera  with  him  and  enthusiastically  bobbed  up  and 
down,  snapping  players — and  how  put  out  he  was  at  the 
end  of  the  afternoon  to  discover  that  I  had  slipped  his  lens 
cap  on  and  he  hadn't  noticed  it!  So,  his  pictures  were  not! 
But  he  didn't  bawl  me  out. 

But  Tudor  was  my  real  pal.  He  taught  me  many  things 
about  the  chosen  craft  and  I  always  feel  a  debt  of  gratitude 
to  him  for  his  sympathy  and  understanding. 


JAMES    FORBES  61 

JAMES  FORBES 

My  maiden  effort,  or  rather  efforts,  are  anything  but 
pleasant  memories.  The  first  was  an  "Essay";  its 
subject,  "The  Mirror." 

The  class  in  English,  of  which  I  was  notably  the  most 
stupid  member,  was  compelled  to  listen  to  a  dry  recital  of 
facts  concerning  some  utilitarian  object  and  then  retell 
them  in  the  form  of  "composition." 

The  teacher's  voice  was  raucous — and  I  have  always 
been  inordinately  sensitive  to  voices — her  diction  so 
abominable,  that  her  daily  reading  of  a  chapter  from  the 
Bible — which  began  the  school  day — almost  made  me  an 
atheist.  Naturally  the  English  lesson  was  the  horror  of  my 
fourteen  year  old  days.  I  could  never  remember  the  facts. 

On  the  day  in  question  every  boring  detail  regarding  the 
invention  of  the  mirror,  the  first  use  of  it,  the  modern  proc 
ess  of  manufacture  was  droned  out.  As  we  were  returning 
to  our  desks  I  was  reprimanded,  publicly,  for  inattention, 
warned  that  I  must  make  an  effort  and  that  if  my  paper 
was  marked  zero  again  I  would  be  haled  before  the  principal. 
That  did  not  bother  me  but  I  disliked  being  so  stupid. 

I  tried,  but  could  not  recall  anything  that  I  had  been  told. 

So  I  began  to  think  of  mirrors  and  I  was  launched,  pres 
ently,  in  an  autobiography  of  an  old  mirror  which  was  end 
ing  its  days  in  a  second-hand  shop.  I  told  of  all  the  faces  it 
had  reflected  and  how  it  had  gradually  descended  to  its  last 
resting  place  where  its  old  age  was  solaced  by  the  baby  who 
played  with  its  reflection  in  the  faded  glass.  I  am  not  sure 
that  I  did  not  have  the  baby  die.  I  was  quite  excited  and 
thrilled. 

We  were  summoned  to  read  our  "stuff."  As  one  after 
another  of  the  class  read  a  glib  resume  of  facts,  I  began  to 
cringe  with  shame.  I  would  have  eaten  my  paper  but  there 
was  too  much  of  it.  I  was  at  the  foot  of  the  class. 

When  it  came  to  me  I  said  that  I  had  not  written  any 
thing.  But  the  teacher  had  seen  it.  I  begged  as  much  as  I 
dared.  Then  I  resisted  her  attempts  to  take  it  from  me  but 


62  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

aid  from  the  older  forms  was  summoned  and  the  paper  was 
removed  forcibly.  I  have  had  a  few  bad  moments  in  my 
life  but  never  any  more  soul-searing  than  when  I  sat  and 
heard  that  paper  read  aloud.  The  sarcasm  in  her  voice,  the 
titters  of  the  class,  and  her  burst  of  laughter  as  she  read  the 
baby — well,  I  touched  the  rock  bottom  of  humiliation. 
Afterwards  I  was  soundly  thrashed,  but  that  was  a  mere 
detail  in  a  world  of  misery. 

About  seven  years  later  I  tried  again. 

I  had  become  a  constant  theatre-goer,  and,  necessarily, 
because  of  my  income,  an  occupant  of  the  gallery.  My  fel 
low  "gallery  boys"  were  a  great  source  of  amusement  to  me 
because  of  the  strange  and  amusing  idiom  in  which  they 
expressed  their  opinions  of  the  plays  and  the  actors.  I  used 
to  pass  them  along  to  my  friends,  one  of  whom  was  a  woman 
who  contributed  a  daily  column  to  a  Chicago  newspaper. 
Very  often  she  used  some  of  my  stories  and  finally  urged 
that  I  do  one  myself. 

So  I  wrote  a  gallery  boy's  impression  of  a  music  hall.  It 
was  written  in  slang — the  sort  of  thing  that  Edward 
Townsend  was  doing  so  wonderfully  in  "Chimmie  Fadden," 
although  I  did  not  know  it  at  the  time.  I  sent  in  my  story 
and  was  delighted  when  I  received  a  check  for  five  dollars 
and  a  letter  asking  me  to  call. 

What  impressed  me  was  that,  although  I  had  never  met 
the  Editor,  he  addressed  me  as  "Dear  Jim."  At  the  lunch 
eon  hour  I  dashed  around  to  his  office  and  was  bewildered  by 
the  coolness  of  my  reception.  He  left  the  room  for  a  mo 
ment  and  I  took  out  the  precious  letter.  I  realized  that  it 
was  addressed  "Dear  Sir"  and  that  he  had  used  the  long  "S" 
which  I  had  never  seen  outside  of  Pepys  and  I  had  mistaken 
it  for  a  "J". 

I  was  assigned  to  do  an  impression  of  Eleanora  Duse,  then 
making  her  first  visit  to  Chicago.  I  selected  "Cavalleria 
Rusticana"  as  I  was  familiar  with  its  operatic  version.  The 
editor  suggested  that  I  do  the  play  from  the  wings.  So  I 
presented  his  letter  to  the  manager  and  was  given  the  free 
dom  of  "back  stage." 


JAMES    FORBES  63 

I  followed  the  performance  from  various  points  of  vantage 
and  finally,  when  it  came  to  the  scene  where  Santuzza  falls 
upon  the  steps  of  the  church  cursing  the  faithless  Turriddu 
I  was  not  more  than  three  feet  away.  Duse,  true  to  her 
natural  mode  of  acting,  did  not  turn  and  theatrically  deliver 
her  curse  to  the  audience  but  directed  it  straight  at  me.  Or 
so  it  seemed.  I  was  literally  frozen  with  terror  as  the  tor 
rent  of  her  rage  seemed  to  fall  all  about  me. 

I  wandered  out  of  the  stage  door  that  night  appreciating 
that  I  had  been  privileged  to  see,  at  close  range,  one  of  the 
most  marvelous  exhibitions  of  acting  genius  in  the  theatre. 
I  doubt  that  I  have  ever  seen  one  that  equalled  it. 

The  next  day  I  called  on  the  editor  and  said  that  I  could 
not  do  the  story. 

When  he  demanded  the  reason  I,  like  the  idiot  I  was, 
said  that  it  would  be  a  "sacrilege."  I  offered  to  do  another 
story.  He  scorned  me  and  asked  me  what  I  did  for  a  living. 
I  replied  that  I  was  a  bookkeeper  in  a  wholesale  grocery 
store.  He  told  me  that  I  had  better  stay  there.  I  ventured 
meekly,  "You  don't  think  that  I  can  write?''  "No,"  came 
quickly,  "You  belong  with  the  prunes." 

I  must  have  lacked  the  urge,  or  been  a  coward,  for  that 
teacher's  laugh  and  that  word  "prunes"  remained  with 
me  many  years,  and  although,  as  a  press  agent,  I  wrote  a 
great  deal  of  fiction,  it  was  not  until  nine  years  later,  when 
I  was  thirty,  that  I  tried  again  and  wrote  for  Ainslees  a 
dialogue,  "The  Extra  Girl,"  which  was  afterwards  drama 
tized  as  "The  Chorus  Lady." 

HENRY  JAMES  FORMAN 

Accident  has  played  a  prominent  role  in  so  many  maiden 
efforts  at  writing  that  I   fear  a  regrettable  lack  of 
drama  in  my  own.     For  from  about  the  age  of  thir 
teen  I  foresaw  and  dreamed  of  no  other  career  than  that  of 
a  writer. 

It  was  at  that  callow  age  that  I  began  to  run  a  serial 
story  in  a  school  journal  of  some  sixty  foolscap  pages  weekly, 


64  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

written  by  hand  and  edited  by  a  lad  in  the  grade  above 
mine — who  has  not  since  become  either  an  editor  or  an 
author.  There  was  also  an  artist  who  illustrated  that 
journal  with  gorgeous  crayon  drawings  of  "The  Soudan" 
and  kindred  subjects  no  less  familiar  to  him,  and  that  lad 
has  since  become  a  practising  artist.  His  name  is  Edouard 
Steichen. 

The  serial  I  was  composing  is  grown  dim  in  my  mind.  I 
only  remember  that  there  was  a  yacht  in  it,  that  it  steered 
a  middle  course  between  G.  A.  Henty  and  Jules  Verne  and 
that  some  desperate  blade  of  the  John  Silver  variety,  after 
seizing  that  admirable  craft  made  himself  "Master  of  the 
Indian  Ocean."  What  he  did  with  the  Indian  Ocean 
once  he  possessed  it,  is  a  blank  in  my  memory.  Perhaps  it 
was  a  blank  in  the  serial.  I  do  not  know.  But  in  a  sense 
that  was  my  earliest  maiden  effort. 

Print  I  achieved  not  much  later,  in  newspapers,  by  giv 
ing  my  services  gratis  as  a  sort  of  apprentice  reporter,  by 
contributing  to  school  and  college  periodicals  and  indeed, 
paying  a  portion  of  my  expense  at  Harvard  by  writing 
articles  for  the  Wednesday  and  Saturday  supplements  of  the 
Boston  Transcript. 

In  the  Christmas  recess  of  my  senior  year  I  even  wrote  a 
short  story  that  was  sold  to  The  Youth's  Companion  for  the 
sum  of  forty  dollars.  That  story,  so  far  as  I  know,  has 
never  seen  the  light  of  day.  Though  secretly  nettled  at  the 
magazine's  reticence  regarding  it,  I  have  always  cherished  a 
subterranean  feeling  that  The  Youth's  Companion,  even 
though  it  could  not  find  space  for  the  tale,  desired  to  keep 
it  out  of  the  market,  thus  preventing  competitors  from 
"boosting"  their  circulations.  One  must  admit,  however 
reluctantly,  that  that  was  sound  policy.  .  .  . 

As  my  real  maiden  effort,  however,  I  must  regard  my  first 
book.  Whatever  writing  I  dreamed  and  hoped  to  do,  I 
always  envisaged  in  terms  of  books.  I  had  hoped  that  my 
first  book  would  be  a  novel.  It  proved  however  to  be  a 
book  of  travel. 

From  the  moment  I  left  college  I  desired  to  write  a  book. 


HENRY   JAMES    FORMAN  65 

And  whatever  time  for  depression  was  left  me  during  my 
service  as  a  reporter  on  the  Sun,  as  an  editor  of  The  Literary 
Digest  and  The  North  American  Review,  was  filled  with  the 
darkness  of  despair  that  the  years  were  slipping  by  and  no 
book  yet  stood  to  my  credit.  Again  and  again  I  addressed 
myself  to  the  task  of  beginning  a  novel,  but  always  it  baffled 
me.  I  would  read  over  the  first  few  pages,  and  recoil  in 
agony  from  the  flatness  and  the  meagreness  of  the  result. 
Like  the  blacksmith  who  began  to  learn  his  letters  late  in 
life  and  exclaimed  aghast  to  the  school-mistress:  "My  God, 
woman,  is  this  A !"  I  could  not  but  groan  when  I  scanned 
my  own  efforts.  "Is  this  fiction !"  I  concluded  that  I  must 
attempt  less  ambitious  efforts. 

Thanks  to  the  courtesy  of  the  editor  and  publisher  of  The 
North  American  Review,  who  made  it  possible  for  me  to 
take  my  vacations  abroad,  I  undertook  one  summer  a  walk 
ing  tour  in  the  Hartz  Mountains.  Heine's  "Harzreise"  had 
captivated  my  fancy  as  a  student  and  for  some  years  I 
entertained  the  notion  of  travelling  the  same  road  in  Heine's 
footsteps.  In  this  instance,  as  it  happened,  I  had  no  par 
ticular  plan  for  a  book,  though  I  did  fondly  suppose  there 
might  be  a  magazine  article  in  it. 

One  Monday  morning  I  made  my  start  from  Gottingen 
with  a  ruck-sack  on  my  back  and,  if  I  remember  correctly,  I 
was  in  Gottingen  again  by  the  following  Monday  morning 
— a  total  time  elapsed  of  seven  days. 

All  the  succeeding  autumn  and  winter,  while  engaged, 
single-handed,  in  getting  out  The  North  American  Review, 
I  occupied  myself  with  romanticizing  my  seven  days'  journey 
through  the  Hartz  Mountains.  I  wrote  in  the  evenings,  but 
chiefly  on  holidays  and  Sundays,  endlessly,  it  seemed,  for 
eight  or  nine  months,  conscious  all  the  while  that  my  labor 
would  probably  prove  the  only  reward  for  my  pains. 

All  that  winter  Gelett  Burgess,  who,  with  Will  Irwin 
occupied  the  front  rooms  of  a  top  story  of  which  I  held  the 
rear,  was  operating  a  toy  railway  train  on  the  floor  and 
building  daily  new  signals  and  switches,  laying  new  track 
age  and  achieving  a  skill  at  the  business  that  has  since,  as 


66  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

everybody  knows,  made  Burgess  President  of  the  Union 
Pacific.  How  I  envied  him  his  delightful  employment! 
But  I  had  set  myself  the  task  of  writing  the  Hartz,  and  with 
patient  desperation  I  plodded  on.  I  was  certain  no  publisher 
would  print  it,  and  more  certain  still  that  no  one  would  read 
it  if  it  were  published. 

When  I  had  typed  it,  and  offered  it  to  the  Scribners,  it 
was  refused  with  energetic  promptness.  The  Century  fol 
lowed  suit,  and  in  disgust,  I  turned  it  over  to  an  agent  to 
do  anything  she  pleased  with  it.  The  agent  sent  it  to 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  who  accepted  it  as  promptly  as 
the  others  had  declined  it,  and  published  it  with  success,  I 
believe,  as  books  of  travel  go.  It  went  into  a  second  edition 
very  soon  and  the  same  publishers  on  the  strength  of  it 
signed  a  contract  for  another  travel  book — on  Italy — which 
I  subsequently  wrote.  I  still  derive  bits  of  royalty  from 
both  these  books. 

But  the  notable  thing  about  "In  the  Footprints  of  Heine" 
was  the  astonishing  unanimity  of  the  reviews  in  both  Eng 
land  and  America.  The  comment  was  voluminous  and  uni 
versally  favorable,  in  some  instances  to  the  point  of  hyper 
bole.  I  have  written  several  books  since  then,  fiction  and 
non-fiction,  but  I  am  still  waiting  for  a  reception  as  wildly 
stimulating  and  agreeable  as  that  of  the  book  that  I  wrote 
almost  consciously  for  practice  in  composition,  with  hardly 
a  thought  of  publication. 


HAMLIN   GARLAND 

My  first  attempt  at  story  writing  was  highly  sensa 
tional — at  least  in  title,  for  I  called  it  "Ten  Years 
Dead."     It  was  a  short  story,  a  very  short  story,  so 
short  that  it  hardly  got  under  motion  before  it  stopped.     I 
suspect  it  ended  because  my  invention  gave  out. 

It  all  happened  a  long  time  ago,  so  long  ago  that  in  writ 
ing  "A  Son  of  the  Middle  Border"  I  neglected  to  mention  it 
among  the  beginnings  of  my  fiction.  In  truth  I  forgot  it, 


HAMLIN    GARLAND  67 

and  it  only  comes  to  mind  now  because  the  Editor  distinctly 
asked  for  an  account  of  my  first  attempt. 

Though  so  sensational  in  title,  "Ten  Years  Dead"  was 
studiedly  and  coldly  veritistic.  I  met  the  man  who  had  been 
ten  years  dead  in  the  Boston  Public  Library — I  mean  that 
is  the  way  the  tale  opens,  and  the  calm  current  of  the  nar 
rative  remained  in  careful  contrast  with  the  title.  The 
theme  was  the  return  of  a  man  to  familiar  home  scenes  after 
ten  years  of  "being  as  one  dead."  The  story  was  told  for 
the  most  part  in  the  first  person. 

It  was  published  in  a  Boston  weekly  but  I  am  not  going 
to  tell  the  name  of  the  periodical,  for  some  one  might  search 
it  out  and  reprint  it,  or  at  least  confront  me  with  it.  Some 
of  the  verse  which  I  wrote  at  that  time  I  am  still  able  to 
read  even  in  public  but  that  story  would  prove  comical — or 
disconcerting  to  me  now. 

It  comes  to  me  dimly  as  I  write  that  the  theme  was  sug 
gested  to  me  by  a  dream.  It  was  after  Hawthorne — a  very 
long  way  after  Hawthorne — and  I  only  mention  it  now  be 
cause  it  really  was  my  first  published  attempt  at  fiction  and 
I  cannot  tell  a  lie — that  is  I  say  I  won't — because  in  this 
case  it  is  more  interesting  to  tell  the  truth.  The  date  of 
this  attempt  was  I  believe  about  November,  1885. 

THEODOSIA  GARRISON 

The  poetry  of  the  normal,  well-fed  infant  is,  at  its  best, 
amusing.     I  wish  mine  had  been  that  or  anything 
indeed  than  what  it  was — all  sugar  and  sweetness 
and  light. 

The  only  touch  of  flavor  about  it  is  the  fact  that  it  was 
laboriously  printed  on  my  seventh  Christmas  Day  with  the 
earnest  intention  of  expressing  my  joy  in  snow  and  bells  and 
a  holiday  and  holly-wreaths  and  the  possession  of  a  brand- 
new  dwarf-desk  which  smelled  deliciously  of  varnish. 

On  a  minute  sheet  of  gift-paper  with  a  Mother  Goose 
picture  at  the  top  I  expressed  my  high  approval  of  Yuletide 
as  follows: 


68  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

It  was  a  day  in  early  May, 
The  earth  was  sweet  with  flowers, 
Nothing  to  break  the  silence 
Of  those  happy,  scented  hours. 

I  spare  you  the  rest  which  contains  the  philosophic  dis 
course  of  a  "shepherd  lad"  to  his  "flocks  and  herds"  whom 
he  addresses  as  "So-boss"  and  "Co-boss"  ending  with  the 
bland  admonition, 

Play  my  pretty  lambkins  play, 
Life's  not  all  a  rainy  day. 

An  earnest  study  of  this  will  prove  the  early  influence  of 
Longfellow;  "Pollyanna"  was  not  yet  born  and  Mr.  Ches 
terton  had  not  written  "I  think  I  will  not  hang  myself  to 
day."  An  idea  which  the  infant  mind  seemed  struggling  to 
express. 

My  first  published  and  paid-for  verse  was  a  quatrain  in 
Lippincott's  some  eleven  years  later. 

By  this  time  I  had  ceased  to  shed  sunshine;  and  being  an 
uncommonly  husky  and  athletic  young  person,  sang  only  of 
death,  despair  and  broken  hearts.  The  last,  despite  the  fact 
that  I  was  very  proud  of  being  AN  ATHEIST  (in  large 
letters)  I  called  loudly  upon  Heaven  to  heal. 

I  was  all  for  strong  words,  I  recall,  and  had  a  vocabulary 
like  a  pirate's.  So-boss  and  Co-boss  were  no  longer  among 
those  present.  Here  is  the  quatrain.  It  is  terrible. 

She  had  lived  such  a  miserable  life 

As  undesired  daughter,  unloved  wife, 

That  when  Death  claimed  her  as  his  love  and  bride 

She  hesitated — fearing  lest  he  lied. 

Oh,  very,  very  Russian! 

For  this  I  received  two  dollars  from  Lippincott's  and 
much  ridicule  from  a  frivolous  and  unappreciative  family. 


ELEANOR   GATES  69 

ELEANOR  GATES 

My  inspiration  was,  I  remember,  The  Youth's  Com 
panion.  It  reached  the  ranch  every  few  weeks, 
tied  in  a  big  bundle  made  up  of  many  issues,  and 
was  to  me  in  the  nature  of  a  literary  spree,  for  my  father, 
with  old-fashioned  ideas,  kept  me  pretty  strictly  to  the  more 
classic  type  of  reading-matter.  So  loving  The  Companion 
as  I  did,  naturally  enough  I  came  to  aspire  to  its  pages ;  and 
when  I  had  dashed  off  my  initial  effort,  what  was  there  bet 
ter  to  do  than  try  it  on  the  teacher?  (I  looked  for  no 
sympathy  at  home.) 

The  teacher  and  I  were  not  on  the  best  of  terms.  He  was 
a  Swede,  tow-headed  and  milky-eyed.  And  he  loathed  me  be 
cause  when  he  mispronounced  words,  which  he  often  did,  I 
promptly  corrected  him — a  bit  of  daring  that  more  than 
once  came  near  to  costing  me  a  public  spanking.  (It  was 
the  year  I  was  eight. )  So  I  was  not  submitting  my  story  to 
him  with  the  thought  that  he  could  help  me  any.  No,  in 
deed.  I  was  simply  hoping  to  fill  him  with  envy. 

The  story  started  off  in  a  most  unaffected  fashion : 

"For  a  long  time  Mr.  Hank  Hayes  has  been  promis 
ing  me  that  he  would  let  me  ride  his  big  gray  stallion. 
So  yesterday  I  went  over  to  his  house,  and  he  led  the 
horse  out.  Tm  afraid  you're  going  to  break  your  neck,* 
he  said.  But  I  was  not  afraid.  The  gray  stallion  has 
dapples  on  his  hair,  and  he  jumped  around  awful  when 
I  got  on.  Then  away  he  galloped." 

The  tale  wound  on  in  my  best  blood-curdling  style,  culled 
from  Cooper,  with  simplifications.  I  told  how  I  swam 
sloughs  and  leaped  coulees,  raised  the  scalps  on  people's 
heads,  and — subdued  the  mammoth  gray,  bringing  him  back 
on  the  Hayes  ranch  dripping  but  still  dancing,  whereupon 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hayes  rendered  to  me  both  praise  and  cookies 
in  which  were  caraway  seeds. 

The  teacher  was  boarding  with  us  that  week,  and  under 
the  pretense  of  examining  my  masterpiece  more  at  his  leisure, 


70  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

he  brought  the  thing  home  in  his  pocket;  then  with  char 
acteristic  (almost  brotherly)  treachery,  he  showed  it  to  that 
paragon  of  all  the  virtues,  that  censor  of  everything  sisterly, 
my  brother  Will. 

With  unconcealed  horror  and  rage  Will  read  my  tale. 
Then  he  launched  into  such  a  storm  of  blame — against  me, 
against  Mr.  Hayes,  and  against  Mrs.  Hayes — and  into  such 
wild  threats  as  to  what  he  intended  to  say  to  my  mother, 
that  without  further  delay  the  author  crawled  under  the 
sitting-room  bed. 

From  there,  lying  on  my  back,  with  my  freckled  nose  full 
of  goose  down,  I  marked  the  too-soon  entrance  of  my 
mother;  heard  Will  break  out  into  his  excited  tattling; 
caught  the  rustle  of  paper  as  my  story  changed  hands — all 
the  while  scarcely  daring  to  breathe. 

"If  it's  all  so,"  vowed  the  eldest-born,  "then  she  ought  to 
be  licked!  And  if  it  ain't  so,  then  it's  a  lie!  And  she's 
under  the  bed,  Ma."  Then  to  me,  "Oh,  you'd  better  hide ! 
You're  goin'  to  catch  it!" 

I  crawled  out.  I  was  trembling  with  fear.  The  red  of 
shame  suffused  my  small  countenance.  Never  since  have  I 
regretted  a  literary  effort  more.  As  I  advanced  I  expected 
to  be  shaken  and  switched. 

What  happened  however  was  very  different  from  my  ex 
pectations — also  it  was  far-reaching  in  its  effect,  and  re 
grettable.  For  my  mother  smiled  upon  me,  held  out  a  wel 
coming  hand,  and  drew  me  to  her  knee.  "So!"  she  said — 
and  I  could  see  that  she  was  proud  about  something.  "So! 
We've  got  a  writer  in  the  family!" 

And  the  harm  was  done. 

By  the  time  I  was  eleven  I  was  writing  freely,  but,  thanks 
to  that  stern  and  scoffing  critic,  my  eldest  brother,  I  was  sub 
mitting  no  material.  One  of  these  early  opera  begins  thus: 
"There  were  two  women  in  the  room,  and  both  were  dead" 
—which  shows  that  I  was  then  passing  through  that  period 
of  too-young  literary  effort  always  recognizable  by  the  ex 
alting  of  the  ultra-morbid.  Fortunately  I  came  through  it 
safely. 


ELEANOR   GATES  71 

Fortunately,  also,  a  man  whom  I  met — I  was  still  at  an 
age  when  my  hair  was  forever  getting  snagged  on  the  but 
tons  on  the  back  of  my  pinafore — gave  me  some  precious 
advice  which  (astonishing  as  it  may  seem)  I  took.  It  was 
this:  "Write,  write,  write.  Get  the  habit  of  writing.  But! 
Put  it  all  away.  And  read,  read,  read.  Don't  try  to  sell 
anything  till  you're  grown  up." 

At  twenty-four  I  found  myself  a  junior  "special"  at  the 
University,  where  I  was  merrily  flunking  in  all  my  courses, 
due  to  the  fact  that  I  was  reading  everything  except  what  I 
should  have  read;  due,  also  to  the  other  fact  that  I  was 
writing  My  Maiden  Dramatic  Effort,  a  play  called  "Gentle 
Miss  Gillette,"  which  was  produced  at  the  Macdonough 
Theatre,  Oakland,  California.  When  my  "The  Poor  Little 
Rich  Girl"  opened  at  the  Hudson  Theatre,  New  York,  it 
was  presumed  to  be  my  first  dramatic  attempt.  But  be 
tween  these  two  plays,  during  the  eleven  years  intervening, 
I  had  collaborated  on  several. 

After  that  first,  and  dramatic,  work,  I  allowed  myself  to 
be  deflected  to  literary  stuff  of  another  kind.  Finding  all 
my  early  stories  unutterably  awful,  I  burned  them  and 
wrote  a  new  one,  called  "Badgy."  I  offered  it  to  The 
Century  Magazine.  They  bought  it.  That  was  my  first 
sale.  And  "Badgy"  became  a  chapter  of  my  Maiden  Book, 
"The  Biography  of  a  Prairie  Girl." 

KATHARINE  FULLERTON  GEROULD 

The  history  of  my  first  published  short  story  is  academic 
and  uneventful.    At  the  time  when  I  graduated  from 
Radcliffe,  The  Century  was  offering  three  prizes  an 
nually  for  the  best  short  story,  the  best  essay,  the  best  poem 
respectively,  by  a  young  man  or  woman  who  had  graduated 
within  the  previous  year  from  an  American  college  or  uni 
versity.     My  story  "The  Poppies  in  the  Wheat"  won  the 
short  story  prize  for  college  graduates  of  1900. 

After  that,  it  was  many  a  year  before  I  published  fiction 
again.  Not,  in  fact,  until  1911,  when  Scribner's  printed 


72  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

"Vain  Oblations."  Which  is  very  distinctly  "another  story." 
The  history  of  that  would  be  more  interesting,  perhaps,  but, 
as  I  have  been  asked  rigidly  for  my  first  published  story,  I 
am  restricted  to  "The  Poppies  in  the  Wheat,"  published 
by  The  Century  in  January,  1902. 

Yet,  as  I  think  of  it,  I  am  not  sorry;  for  I  wonder  if  of 
late  years  our  young  writers  with  purely  academic  training 
have  not  been  over-much  discouraged  by  the  success  and 
fame  of  those  who  have  had  no  formal  training  at  all.  We 
are  perhaps  too  much  in  danger  of  thinking  that  a  college 
curriculum  is  deadening,  and  that  the  sole  power  to  "write" 
is  found  among  people  who  have  never  learned  any  of  the 
laws  of  rhetoric.  Dick  (in  "The  Light  That  Failed") 
spoke  for  more  than  his  own  time  and  craft  when  he  said: 
"I  sold  every  shred  of  canvas  I  wanted  to ;  and,  on  my  word, 
I  believe  it  was  because  they  believed  I  was  a  self-taught 
flagstone  artist.  I  should  have  got  better  prices  if  I  had 
worked  my  things  on  wool  or  scratched  them  on  camel-bone 
instead  of  using  mere  black  and  white  and  color."  It 
would  be  as  absurd  as  graceless  to  hold  myself  up  as  an  ex 
ample  of  what  academic  training  can  do,  for  academic  train 
ing  has  turned  out  far  better  writers  than  I  can  ever  hope 
to  be.  But  for  the  privilege  of  being  included  in  this  vol 
ume,  I  must  about-face,  look  back  across  the  years  and  salute 
Harvard  English. 

Any  one  who  was  young  in  the  late  nineties  "dates."  But 
those  are  days  one  does  not  forget.  Under  that  blessed  free 
elective  system — now  gone  forever — other  liberties  than  the 
mere  selection  of  courses  were  wisely  granted  to  the  obstrep 
erous  and  earnest.  In  my  sophomore  year  I  entered  a  pro 
test,  in  a  daily  theme,  against  Procrustes;  I  said  I  could 
not  write  the  narratives  so  wickedly  demanded  of  me.  Six 
fortnightly  themes,  connected;  that  meant  a  story;  and  I 
had  no  interest  in  stories.  I  cared  only  for  sentence-struc 
ture;  and  sentence-structure,  it  seemed  to  a  somewhat  astig 
matic  sophomore,  could  be  practised  best  in  descriptive  writ 
ing. 


KATHARINE    FULLERTON    GEROULD      73 

Woe  to  those  who  ever  thought  they  could  protect  a 
grievance  under  the  ironic  eye  of  Lewis  Edward  Gates — 
that  brilliant  critic,  and  great  teacher  of  English  Composi 
tion.  "Very  well;  write  six  connected  descriptions.  You 
misunderstood,  if  you  thought  you  had  to  write  narrative." 
Thus  my  grievance  collapsed.  All  through  the  Spring  of 
1898,  I  listened  to  my  sentences  as  though  my  pen  had  been 
not  a  pen  but  a  lute.  I  wrote  better  sentences  then  than  I 
do  now.  So,  a  sophomore,  I  scorned  the  short  story  with 
all  the  scorn  nineteen  can  muster.  I  cared  only  for  cadences. 

But  in  September,  1898,  something  to  me  tremendous  hap 
pened.  I  read  "What  Maisie  Knew,"  and  on  top  of  it, 
"The  Portrait  of  a  Lady."  Thereafter  for  many  months  I 
read  nothing  for  mere  pleasure  but  Henry  James.  There 
was  no  trouble  then  about  writing  stories.  They  were  the 
only  thing  I  wanted  to  write.  All  through  my  junior  and 
senior  years  I  kept  at  it.  And  the  same  critic  who  had 
laughed  at  my  sophomore  scorn  laughed  at  my  senior  en 
thusiasm.  "At  present" — it  was  the  last  word  of  official 
criticism  I  ever  had  on  my  work — "you  are  too  completely 
imitative  of  Henry  James  to  be  taken  seriously." 

I  wrote  "The  Poppies  in  the  Wheat"  while  still  "too 
imitative  of  Henry  James  to  be  taken  seriously."  I  did 
not  consider  that  I  was  imitating  the  Master.  Simply,  he 
was  the  only  thing  that  had  ever  made  me  want  to  write 
fiction,  that  made  me  see  life  in  plots.  He  was  a  drug,  not 
a  model — though  I  doubt  not  the  effect  was  the  same.  And 
still,  across  the  years,  together  with  those  damning  words 
during  my  senior  year  from  Mr.  Gates,  ring  others  from 
Henry  James  himself,  to  whom  my  oldest  brother,  his  friend, 
had  sent  the  "Poppies."  "Am  I  so  much  that  as  that? 

.  .  .  She  may  see,  a  little,  where  she's  going;  but  I 
see  where  she's  coming,  and  oh!  the  dangers  scare  me.  The 
great  white  light  awaits  to  engulf  her — and  she  mustn't  be 
engulfed.  She  must  splash  and  scramble  and  remount  the 
current  ..."  It  is  years  upon  years  since  I  have 
drawn  that  letter  from  its  safe  harbor  among  old  and 
precious  papers,  but  I  do  not  forget  the  words. 


74  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

For  nearly  one  rounded  decade  I  obeyed  the  warnings. 
I  wrote  only  occasional  beginnings  of  things;  I  published 
nothing.  I  had  passed  straight  from  Radcliffe  to  be  an 
"English  Reader"  at  Bryn  Mawr;  and  I  think  you  do  not 
write  of  an  evening  when  you  have  been  correcting  themes 
all  day.  My  friends  always  intended  me  to  write — as,  until 
I  was  one-and-twenty,  I  had  always  since  infancy  intended 
to.  But  the  power  of  "You  are  too  imitative,"  etc.,  was 
strong  upon  me,  all  those  years  after  graduation.  I  fancy 
the  day  I  wrote — and  finished — "Vain  Oblations,"  in  an 
ancient  convent  in  Touraine,  my  strongest  inner  comment  on 
my  own  tale  was:  "It's  not  imitative  of  Henry  James — 
that  I'll  bet  on."  Even  so  do  words  register  themselves  for 
better  or  worse  on  young  minds. 

There  is,  alas!  nothing  dramatic  in  this  account  of  my 
maiden  effort.  It  was  preluded  to  by  three  or  four  years 
of  good  stiff  work  in  "composition"  courses.  The  acci 
dental  success  of  "The  Poppies  in  the  Wheat"  did  not  suf 
fice  to  obliterate  that  damning  sentence  about  being  too 
imitative.  I  think  now  that  that  was  a  good  thing  and  I 
am  glad  that  the  words  had  such  discouraging  power  over 
me.  Perhaps  to  have  one's  manuscripts  batted  about  among 
the  editors  of  magazines  is  a  good  lesson  in  what  will  "get 
across."  I  have  never  found  it  so.  I  still  remain  entirely 
unillumined  by  the  acceptances  and  refusals  of  editorial 
critics.  The  most  constructive  and  enlightening  criticism  I 
have  ever  had  on  my  short  stories  has  been  academic — for 
I  have  been  fortunate  enough  these  latter  years  to  have 
once  more  a  professor  of  English  to  refer  to. 

When  I  read  contemporary  advice  to  contemporary  writ 
ers,  I  realize  that  all  of  it  which  is  really  valuable  I  heard 
long  ago  from  the  Harvard  English  Department;  from 
Gates  and  Gardiner,  from  Copeland  and  Hurlburt.  As  I 
look  back  on  my  own  undergraduate  days,  at  a  long  period 
of  teaching  Bryn  Mawr  students,  at  years  of  sympathetically 
watching  the  work  of  Princeton  undergraduates,  I  seem  to 
notice  that  the  best  creative  work  is  not  apt  to  be  turned 
out  by  the  student  who  adapts  himself  most  easily  to  the 


KATHARINE    FULLERTON    GEROULD      75 

curriculum.  Those  who  do  best  are  often  rebels  against  re 
quirements  and  red  tape.  |Yeast,  I  suppose,  "working." 

Yet  even  for  the  rebel  the  red  tape  is  doubtless  a  good 
thing,  for  it  puts  him  on  the  defensive.  To  justify  his 
restiveness,  he  must  do  his  damnedest.  To  get  allowances 
made  for  his  vagaries  he  must  deliver  the  goods.  No  one  is 
more  glad  for  goods  delivered  than  the  impartial  academic 
critic  who  has  no  game  to  play,  no  public  to  placate  or  stimu 
late  except  the  hypothetical  public  of  intelligent  readers  un 
biassed  by  momentary  prejudice.  No  one  is  more  conscious 
that,  if  you  have  the  root  of  the  matter,  life  and  hard  work 
will  do  the  rest.  No  one  is  more  keenly  aware  than  the 
good  academic  critic  whether  or  not  the  root  of  the  matter 
is  there. 

No,  it  isn't  thrilling;  but  it  is  true. 

MONTAGUE  GLASS 

Its  name  was  "Papagallo"  and  I  wrote  it  in  the  office  of 
an  attorney  who  could  not  support  the  tedium  of  wait 
ing  for  clients  that  never  came,  without  taking  an  oc 
casional  drink  in  the  cafe-restaurant  downstairs.  On  these 
visits  I  wrote  "Papagallo" — in  brief  installments  and  at 
long  intervals,  because  in  the  beginning  he  was  fairly  ab 
stemious.  Just  before  I  left  him,  however,  he  was  hope 
lessly  addicted  to  what  we  call,  in  the  New  Rochelle  No- 
License  Campaign,  the  liquor  habit,  and  I  got  quite  a  lot 
of  work  done  on  my  stories.  Had  I  remained  until  he  was 
confined  to  his  bed  with  delirium  tremens  or  cirrhosis  of  the 
liver,  I  might  have  turned  out  a  couple  of  three-volume 
novels;  but  toward  the  last,  he  never  paid  me  and  neither 
did  my  stories. 

So  I  found  a  job  with  a  firm  of  hustling  lawyers,  who 
were  cold  sober  in  and  out  of  office  hours.  The  stand  they 
took  on  the  literary  aspirations  of  their  clerks  might  be 
summed  up  in  the  story  of  the  London  grocer  who  caught 
his  assistant  in  the  barber  shop  when  he  ought  to  have  been 
behind  the  grocery  counter. 


76  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

"  'Ave  your  'air  cut  in  your  own  time,  not  mine"  the 
grocer  said. 

"Well,  it  grew  in  your  time,  didn't  it?"  the  assistant  said. 

But  I  was  never  very  good  at  repartee  so  I  devoted  my 
working  hours  to  work,  not  literary  work,  and  utilized  the 
firm's  legal  size  envelopes  for  sending  out  the  manuscripts 
that  I  already  had  in  stock. 

"Papagallo"  cost  me  and  that  law  firm,  between  us,  sev 
eral  dollars  in  postage  stamps,  and  at  last  I  disposed  of  it 
to  a  Canadian  paper  for  a  trifle  less  than  the  law  firm  and 
I  spent  on  it.  It  was  a  fairly  bad  story,  written  after  the 
manner  of  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  with  just  a  suggestion  of 
James  Matthew  Barrie. 

Many  years  later  I  reprinted  it  in  a  magazine  called  iQiOj 
a  purely  artistic  enterprise  fostered  by  Charles  B.  Falls.  It 
had  no  editor  and  no  publisher — only  contributors  who 
agreed  to  furnish  a  story,  an  article  or  a  picture  each  month 
during  the  year  1910,  and  ten  dollars  toward  the  cost  of 
printing  the  magazine.  In  May,  1910,  I  went  to  Italy,  and 
I  never  definitely  knew  what  became  of  19 10  which  ceased 
publication  while  I  was  abroad,  but  I  think  I  can  tell  what 
happened  to  it.  It  died  of  a  story  called  "Papagallo." 

ROBERT  GRANT 

My  sufferings  in  breaking  into  print  were  negligible; 
I  had  luck. 
But   I   had  a  few  experiences  on   the  way.     I 
must  have  had  some  natural  propensity  to  write,  for  in  my 
early  teens  it  was  my  favorite  practice  to  pace  the  floor  rap 
idly  with  a  thumb-worn  book  or  card  and  carry  on  a  fic 
titious  story  under  my  breath,  generally  concerned  with  the 
Civil  War. 

Shy  of  observation,  I  was  rarely  overheard;  but  one 
gem:  "The  cat  laid  an  egg"  was  treasured  in  the  family, 
and  revealed  more  imagination  than  anything  I  have  been 
guilty  of  since. 


ROBERT   GRANT  77 

A  little  later  the  discovery  that  I  could  write  verse  was 
forced  upon  me  by  fate  in  this  wise: 

Asked  to  make  a  written  translation  of  a  passage  from 
Ovid,  I  conceived  the  idea  that  because  the  Latin  poetry  be 
gan  with  capitals  my  prose  should  follow  suit,  with  the  re 
sult  that  my  teacher  thought  I  was  attempting  poetry  and 
patted  me  on  the  back.  This  led  to  real  attempts  so  far 
successful  that  I  won  prizes,  including  a  real  prize — only  a 
second  prize — for  a  poem  "The  Ocean,"  before  I  left  school. 

I  think  my  real  maiden  effort  was  in  The  Harvard  Ad 
vocate,  to  which  as  a  Freshman,  I  sent  with  trepidation  some 
mediocre  verses  entitled  "Christmas,"  the  acceptance  of 
which  made  me  very  happy. 

I  have  never  pretended  to  be  a  poet,  but  versifying  comes 
fairly  easy  when  I  am  in  the  vein,  and  I  soon  abandoned  the 
serious  muse  in  whose  service  I  was  merely  commonplace  for 
her  ironic  cousin.  The  Harvard  Advocate,  and,  later,  The 
Harvard  Lampoon,  provided  me  with  the  medium  for  num 
erous  poetic  skits,  and  while  in  the  Law  School  I  perpe 
trated  "The  Little  Tin  Gods-on-Wheels"  or  "Society  in 
^Our  Modern  Athens"  to  illustrations  by  Frank  Attwood, 
'which  was  presently  republished  as  a  brochure  by  Sever, 
the  Cambridge  bookseller,  and  became  popular. 

From  first  to  last  I  have  lived  a  double  life,  for  my  writ 
ing  has  been  done  in  the  intervals  of  law  practice;  and  for 
the  last  twenty-seven  years  of  judicial  duties,  so  to  be  con 
sistent,  I  became  Assistant  Editor  to  Dr.  Edward  Everett 
Hale  on  Old  and  New  during  my  apprenticeship  at  the  bar. 
In  its  pages  I  was  able  to  print  some  more  sardonic  rhymes 
without  hindrance. 

Old  and  New  had  a  blue  cover,  but  its  life  was  short; 
and  as  by  this  time  I  had  set  up  a  law  office  of  my  own,  I 
busied  myself  for  six  months  while  waiting  for  clients  with 
"The  Confessions  of  a  Frivolous  Girl,"  the  manuscript  of 
which  I  carried  to  a  local  bookseller. 

He  was  eager  to  publish  it  but  invited  me  to  assume  the 
risk  which,  fortunately  for  me,  I  did.  It  sold  like  hot  cakes 
and  presently,  on  the  strength  of  this  I  sold  three  novels 


78  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

"short"  to  a  Boston  publisher  at  what  seemed  to  me  a  large 
price,  but  which  would  have  been  very  small  had  they  turned 
out  big  sellers.  I  tried  my  best,  but  I  was  feeling  my  way, 
serving  my  apprenticeship,  as  it  were,  ex  post  facto. 

The  first  of  the  three  appeared  serially  in  The  Century 
Magazine,  and  before  the  last  was  finished  the  publisher  be 
came  bankrupt.  But  I  kept  on  and  from  this  time  forward 
knew  no  rebuffs  from  editors.  Nothing  I  wrote,  with  the 
single  exception  of  some  sentimental  verses  under  a  nom 
de  guerre,  was  ever  returned  for  many  years  to  come.  As 
I  said  to  begin  with,  I  had  great  luck.  I  have  never  known 
the  discipline  of  literary  adversity.  It  is  only  the  public 
that  has  been  made  suffer. 

ANNA  KATHARINE  GREEN 

Before  I  could  write  I  got  amusement  out  of  telling 
stories  to  myself.  After  I  learned  to  write  I  scribbled 
stories  on  the  margins  of  my  school  books  during  class 
hours.  With  my  childhood  mates  I  got  out  a  paper  in  imi 
tation  of  a  Buffalo  journal. 

Later  I  took  to  versifying.  This  developed  into  my  taking 
up  the  writing  of  verse.  As  I  write,  a  letter  of  Emerson 
lies  before  me  in  which  he  was  good  enough  to  offer  me 
valuable  suggestions  in  that  line.  Applying  his  advice  to 
my  subsequent  work,  I  wrote  the  poetry  that  is  collected 
in  the  volume  "The  Defense  of  the  Bride."  This  volume, 
however,  found  no  publisher  until  after  my  first  prose  work 
was  out. 

My  mother  had  a  practical  mind  and  told  me  I  had  bet 
ter  make  an  effort  to  write  prose.  This  I  later  decided  to 
do,  having  an  understanding  with  myself  that  if  I  did  so 
the  story  should  be  one  of  plot. 

An  idea  or  a  combination  of  ideas  came  to  me  that  eventu 
ally  grew  into  "The  Leavenworth  Case,"  a  volume  of  123,000 
words,  nearly  costing  me  my  health.  It  was  written  on  all 
and  any  kind  of  paper,  purchased  wherever  I  happened  to 
be.  It  was  written  in  hotel  rooms,  trains,  steamboats,  notes 
made  even  in  street  cars  and  on  ferry-boats. 


ANNA  KATHARINE  GREEN  79 

The  result  was  an  enormous  mass  of  manuscript,  such  as 
probably  no  reader  before  ever  had  to  encounter. 

It  never  had  to  be  submitted  to  more  than  one  publisher. 
Mr.  George  Haven  Putnam  has  often  told  how  a  young 
woman  came  to  his  office  with  a  strange-looking  parcel  held 
in  a  shawl-strap.  He  said  it  was  a  "formidable-looking 
mass."  I  left  the  "mass"  with  him.  After  passing  a  period 
of  anxiety  as  to  what  his  decision  might  be,  he  asked  me  to 
call  on  him. 

At  that  interview  he  told  me  that  the  story  was  "good 
but  very  long" ;  that  it  would  have  to  be  shortened  by  30,000 
words.  I  had  thought  that  every  word  I  had  written  was 
of  vital  importance  and  his  statement  nearly  took  away  my 
breath,  for  I  had  in  mind  the  drawers  full  of  manuscript 
that  I  had  already  voluntarily  discarded  in  the  ceaseless 
writing  and  re-writing  of  its  chapters.  However,  I  had 
faith  in  my  work  and  deferred  to  the  house  of  Putnam. 

I  cut  out,  with  infinite  labor,  25,000  words,  thinking 
that  now  all  would  be  clear  sailing.  But  this  was  not  so. 
When  I  saw  Mr.  Putnam  again  he  said:  "Now,  Miss 
Green,  there  is  one  other  thing  necessary.  I  have  arranged 
with  Rossiter  Johnson  to  hear  you  read  that  story  to  him. 
If  his  decision  is  favorable  we  will  publish  the  book,  long 
as  it  is." 

This  proved  to  be  an  ordeal  that  I  shall  never  forget. 

Mr.  Johnson  came  to  my  home  in  Brooklyn.  I  com 
menced  reading  to  him  on  Saturday  and  read  way  into  the 
night.  When  I  finished  reading  the  first  half  I  did  not 
know  whether  the  impression  I  had  made  was  favorable 
or  not. 

As  I  read  Mr.  Johnson  sat  with  closed  eyes,  opening  them 
only  at  the  end  of  a  chapter,  to  say  "Another?" 

The  Sunday  came  and  I  dreaded  it.  After  breakfast  the 
reading  was  resumed  and  continued  into  the  late  night, 
when  Mr.  Johnson  left  for  his  home.  With  the  exception 
of  what  he  said  on  coming  and  going,  the  only  word  he 
spoke  was  that  word  "Another?"  which  to  me  might  mean 
anything  I  chose  to  think.  But  I  hoped  for  the  best.  The 
coming  of  the  postman  was  watched  for  eagerly,  and  after 


80  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

several  days  of  anxiety  the  letter  came,  saying  that  Mr. 
Johnson's  report  was  very  favorable,  and  would  I  call  at 
the  office  to  sign  a  contract. 

This  was  my  maiden  effort.  By  the  publication  of  "The 
Leavenworth  Case"  I  became  an  author.  In  time  the  book 
was  translated  into  several  languages;  but  the  praise  be 
stowed  on  it  by  that  master  of  plot,  Wilkie  Collins,  is  per 
haps  the  greatest  satisfaction  of  all. 

If  I  had  not  been  asked  to  write  the  above  it  is  possible 
that  in  time  I  might  even  forget  the  repetition  of  the  word 
"Another?"  I  question  now,  however,  if  I  ever  shall.  But 
"all's  well  that  ends  well." 

ZANE  GREY 

My  first  literary  effort  was  consummated  when  I  was 
about  fourteen  years  old  at  the  home  where  I  was 
born  in  Zanesville,  Ohio.  Not  improbably  the  cir 
cumstances  attending  the  writing  of  this  piece  will  be  recog 
nized  by  other  writers  as  authentic  and  natural,  unless  they 
have  never  been  boys. 

I  belonged  to  a  gang  of  young  ruffians,  or  rather  I  was 
the  organizer  and  leader  of  a  band  of  youthful  desperadoes 
who  were  bound  to  secrecy  by  oaths  and  the  letting  of  blood. 
In  the  back  of  our  orchard  there  was  a  thick  briar  patch, 
in  the  middle  of  which  was  concealed  the  entrance  to  a  cave. 
We  had  dug  this  cave  at  opportune  hours  during  the  day  or 
night,  packing  away  the  dirt  in  sacks.  The  entrance  was 
just  large  enough  to  squeeze  into,  but  below  we  had  two 
good-sized  rooms,  all  boarded  up,  with  walls  plastered  with 
pictures  and  decorated  with  skins,  hand-made  weapons,  and 
utensils  we  had  filched  from  our  respective  homes.  We  had 
a  lamp  that  never  burned  right  and  a  stone  fireplace  that 
did  not  draw  well. 

Here  we  congregated  at  different  times  to  divide  the 
spoils  of  some  boyish  raid,  or  to  eat  the  watermelons  or 
grapes  we  had  stolen,  or  to  feast  on  some  neighbor's  chicken. 
We  boiled  the  chickens  in  a  pot  that  my  mother  was  always 
searching  for  but  never  found. 


ZANE    GREY  81 

Sometimes,  too,  when  the  neighborhood  had  become  sud 
denly  aroused  over  incidents  that  to  us  were  trivial,  we  re 
paired  to  our  cave  to  hide.  Once  we  slept  there  all  night, 
or  at  least  stayed  there,  and  each  boy  was  supposed  to  have 
spent  the  night  at  the  home  of  another  boy.  This,  to  our 
great  joy,  was  never  found  out.  We  had  a  complete  col 
lection  of  Beadle  s  Dime  Library  and  some  of  Harry  Cas- 
tleman's  books,  the  reading  of  which  could  only  be  earned 
by  a  deed  of  valor. 

In  this  cave  I  wrote  my  first  story.  I  wrote  it  on  pieces 
of  wall  paper,  not  all  of  which  were  even  in  size.  I  slaved 
and  sweat  over  this  story,  and  smarted  too,  for  the  smoke 
always  got  into  my  eyes.  It  was  hard  to  write  because  the 
boys  whispered  with  heads  together — some  bloody  story — 
some  dark  deed  they  contemplated  against  those  we  hated — 
some  wild  plan. 

But  at  last  I  finished  it.  The  title  was  "Jim  of  the 
Cave."  That  title  made  a  hit  with  all  but  the  member  in 
whose  honor  it  was  created.  I  read  it  with  voice  not  always 
steady  nor  clear.  It  had  to  do  with  a  gang  of  misunder 
stood  boys,  a  girl  with  light  hair  and  blue  eyes,  dark  nights, 
secrets,  fight,  blood,  and  sudden  death.  Jim,  the  hero,  did 
not  get  the  light-haired  girl.  For  that  matter  none  of  the 
gang  got  her,  because  none  of  them  survived. 

My  early  perceptions  were  not  infallible.  In  spite  of  my 
love  for  Jim,  he  could  not  be  made  a  real  honest-Injun 
hero.  It  was  through  his  perfidy  that  our  secret  was  dis 
covered.  He  had  broken  one  of  our  laws  and  was  tem 
porarily  suspended.  He  chose  a  time  when  we  were  all  in 
the  cave  regaling  ourselves  with  another  chicken,  and  he 
brought  my  father  to  the  entrance  of  our  hiding-place.  We 
had  to  tear  off  the  board  roof  and  bring  to  light  all  we  had 
stolen,  and  then  fill  up  the  hole.  Thus  my  father  got  pos 
session  of  "Jim  of  the  Cave."  Perhaps  when  he  consigned 
it  to  the  flames  he  had  no  divination  of  its  priceless  value. 
And  he  licked  me  with  a  strip  of  Brussels  carpet  which  he 
found  in  the  cave.  What  I  did  to  the  Judas  of  our  clan 
was  similar  in  part  to  the  story  he  had  inspired.  In  real  life 


82  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

he  grew  up,  passed  me  by  with  stony  stare,  and  married  the 
light-haired  girl. 

The  first  of  my  work  to  see  print  in  book  form  was 
written  years  afterward. 

I  had  always  yearned  to  write,  but  in  the  early  years  I 
did  not  know  it  and  there  was  no  one  to  tell  me.  In  col 
lege  I  could  not  attend  to  lectures.  My  mind  wandered. 
My  dreams  persisted.  I  used  to  go  into  the  great  silent 
library  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  and  sit  there,  feel 
ing  a  vague  peace,  and  the  stirring  of  inward  force  that 
afterward  drove  me  to  write. 

When  I  graduated  I  went  to  New  York  to  practice  my 
profession.  Here,  as  in  college,  I  dreamed — my  mind  wan 
dered  to  the  hills  and  vales — to  adventure.  During  my 
brief  vacations  I  got  as  far  away  from  the  city  as  possible, 
and  began  writing  the  tales  of  fishing  and  canoeing  experi 
ences.  These  passed  muster  in  some  of  the  outdoor  maga 
zines. 

Then  came  the  ambition  to  write  a  book.  I  chose  the 
story  of  Elizabeth  Zane,  sister  of  Colonel  Ebenezer  Zane, 
my  great-great-grandfather  who  held  Fort  Henry  for  twenty 
years  against  the  Indians  and  British.  During  the  last  siege, 
September  11,  1782,  Betty  Zane  saved  the  fort  by  running 
the  gauntlet  of  fire,  carrying  an  apron  full  of  gunpowder 
over  her  shoulder.  My  mother  first  told  me  this  story,  and 
then  I  heard  it  and  read  it  afterwards  a  thousand  times. 
When  I  saw  it  in  the  Fourth  Reader  I  thrilled  with  pride. 

I  wrote  "Betty  Zane"  in  a  dingy  flat,  on  a  kitchen  table, 
under  a  flickering  light.  All  of  one  winter  I  labored  over 
it,  suffered,  and  hoped,  was  lifted  up  and  anon  plunged  into 
despair.  When  it  was  finished  I  took  it  to  Scribner's  who 
returned  it  with  their  printed  slip — then  to  Doubleday, 
where  Lanier  damned  it  with  faint  praise — then  to  Harper's, 
where  Hitchcock's  verdict  was  that  he  did  not  see  anything 
in  it  to  convince  him  that  I  could  write.  And  so  I  peddled 
"Betty  Zane"  from  one  publisher  to  another.  All  in  vain! 

I  had  no  money.     My  future  looked  black.     And  when 


ZANE  GREY  83 

all  seemed  the  blackest  and  my  spirit  was  low  I  re-read 
"Betty  Zane"  and  swore  they  were  wrong. 

I  borrowed  money  to  publish  my  work.  No  publisher 
would  bring  it  out,  so  I  hired  a  printer  to  print  it. 

And  at  last  I  had  a  book  in  my  hands — a  book  that  I  had 
written!  It  changed  my  life.  I  gave  up  my  profession  and 
went  to  the  country  to  live  and  write.  My  father  was 
distressed.  He  hated  to  have  me  give  up  my  livelihood.  But 
after  I  sent  him  "Betty  Zane"  he  read  it  almost  as  much  as 
he  read  his  favorite  book,  the  Bible.  "Betty  Zane"  received 
unhoped  for  praise  from  the  Press,  but  it  sold  slowly,  for  the 
printer  could  not  get  it  before  the  public.  And  eventually 
I  bought  the  plates. 

Every  year  now  "Betty  Zane,"  in  spite  of  its  crudities, 
sells  more  and  more.  I  never  changed  a  line  of  it.  And 
in  these  days  of  the  H.  C.  L.  old  "Betty"  helps  nobly  to 
keep  the  wolf  from  the  door. 

ARTHUR  GUITERMAN 

It  is  pretty  hard  for  an  incorrigible  writer  of  verse  to  re 
capture  his  first  fine  careless  rapture  from  the  mists  of 
infancy,  the  chances  being  that  he  lisped  in  numbers. 

To  the  best  of  my  recollection  my  maiden  effort  (written 
at  the  age  of  six  or  seven  and  in  orthodox  fashion  with  a 
stub  of  pencil  on  a  scrap  of  wrapping  paper),  was  a  nature 
lyric  entitled  "Fireflies."  While  it  lacked  distinction  and 
originality,  still  it  coupled  "dancing"  and  prancing,"  thus 
evidencing  that  bent  toward  the  complexities  of  rhyme  that 
has  earned  the  author  the  scorn  of  those  to  whom  rhyming 
is  a  vice  even  baser  than  the  use  of  rhythm. 

My  first  effort  appearing  in  a  publication  of  general  cir 
culation  was  a  ballad  called  "The  Palisades,"  telling  the 
Indian  legend  of  the  origin  of  the  great  cliffs  on  the  western 
shore  of  the  Hudson,  and  voicing  a  protest  against  their 
desecration. 


84  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

The  reprinting  of  this  ballad  in  the  New  York  Times 
resulted  in  my  becoming  a  frequent  though  at  that  time  an 
unpaid  contributor  to  the  paper. 

I  feel  quite  antique  when  I  reflect  that  I  was  a  pioneer 
in  what  is  really  free  verse — verse  devoid  of  artificialities 
in  thought,  theme,  or  language,  in  which  the  singer's  lyric 
impulse  is  allowed  its  natural  rhythmic  expression,  unham 
pered  by  the  conventional  irregularities  and  studied  prose 
effects  that  custom  may  demand.  But  the  magazines  of 
the  eighteen-nineties  didn't  want  my  verse;  and  the  news 
papers  that  seemed  glad  enough  to  have  it  had  not  yet  been 
educated  to  the  point  of  paying  for  such  material. 

Still,  I  recall  without  regret  that  I  was  none  the  richer 
for  having  written  such  ballads  as  "The  Call  to  the  Colors" 
and  "The  Rush  of  the  Oregon"  that  were  widely  reprinted 
and  gathered  into  anthologies;  for  some  of  this  work  at 
tracted  the  notice  of  at  least  one  generous  critic,  Mr.  J.  I.  C. 
Clarke,  who  later  published  in  his  magazine,  The  Criterion, 
my  ballad  "The  Rough  Riders,"  and  sent  me  the  first  check 
that  I  ever  received  for  a  manuscript. 

Though  that  was  more  than  twenty-two  years  ago,  I  still 
owe  him  thanks  for  his  encouragement,  his  wise  rejections 
and  his  discriminating  criticisms.  He  is  the  best  and  broad 
est-minded  literary  editor  I  have  ever  known. 


HOLWORTHY  HALL 

It  is  a  very  difficult  matter  for  me  to  point  to  any  one 
specific  symptom  which  can  be  authoritatively  set  down 
as  a  maiden  effort,  because  in  various  methods  and  at 
various  times  I  have  committed  as  many  different  maiden 
efforts   as   Ramona   established    homesteads   or   as    General 
Washington    established    headquarters.      And    as    Ramona 
provided  for  the  tourist,  and  as  Washington  provided  for 
the  historian,  so  have  I  provided  for  the  biographer.    You 
pay  your  money    (or  borrow  this  book  from  a  bona  fide 
purchaser)  and  take  your  choice. 


HOLWORTHY    HALL  85 

The  earliest  evidence  I  have  of  any  tendency  towards  fic 
tion  is  in  the  form  of  a  story  of  the  Civil  War  which  I 
produced  at  the  age  of  eight. 

A  few  years  later  I  was  a  local  correspondent  in  Maine 
for  a  resort  newspaper  and  received  a  free  subscription  in 
return  for  little  items  about  neighborhood  affairs  at  which 
a  pleasant  time  was  reported  as  having  been  had  by  all; 
and  now  and  then  I  produced,  for  no  additional  stipend,  a 
short  story  of  four  or  five  hundred  words  in  which  there  was 
always  at  least  one  death  from  natural  causes,  and  usually 
a  gratuitious  murder.  When  I  was  fifteen  I  was  writing 
society  drama  for  a  school  paper  and  detective  stories  for 
a  real  newspaper;  and  I  can  truthfully  claim  that  neither 
kind  was  very  much  worse  than  the  other. 

When  I  was  in  college,  I  was  writing  fiction  for  what  we 
supposed  to  be  a  "literary"  magazine,  and  in  my  junior  year 
I  had  sold  chemically  pure  fiction  to  a  monthly  magazine 
whose  editor  wrote  me  several  beautiful  letters  to  explain 
why  my  check  was  delayed.  Once  the  treasurer  had  gone 
out  of  town,  and  once  the  auditor  had  failed  to  pass  the 
item ;  but  the  only  explanation  which  was  thoroughly  con 
vincing  came  from  the  Receiver,  who  eventually  sent  me  the 
munificent  sum  of  $1.38.  Perhaps  I  was  fortunate  to  escape 
without  an  assessment. 

It  is  perfectly  apparent,  then,  that  I  have  been  guilty  of 
a  large  number  of  maiden  efforts.  My  "first  printed  work" 
ought  not  to  be  admitted  to  full  standing  in  this  symposium, 
because  it  was  printed  at  my  father's  expense.  My  next 
printed  work  was  probably  a  mystery  story  to  the  effect  that 
"Mr.  Jackson  Springs  has  gone  to  Portland,  Maine,  for 
the  week-end.  Look  out  for  him,  girls!"  My  next  suc 
cessively  printed  works  were  he-and-she  jokes  and  short 
stories  which  were  so  very  short  that  they  would  almost  do 
for  subtitles  to  a  motion  picture. 

I  therefore  take  the  liberty  of  claiming  as  a  maiden  effort 
the  first  story  which  I  ever  wrote  with  the  deliberate  inten 
tion  of  selling  it,  if  possible,  and  the  additional  hope  of 
getting  paid  for  it. 


86  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

When  I  was  eight  years  old  I  wanted  to  learn  to  play  the 
piano,  but  at  that  particular  time,  and  in  that  particular 
region,  it  was  considered  highly  effeminate  for  a  boy  to 
tamper  with  anything  more  musical  than  a  xylophone.  For 
the  next  ten  years  I  tried  to  coerce  music  out  of  any  hollow 
or  resonant  substance,  and  in  time  I  became  an  efficient 
soloist  on  the  mandolin  and  ocarina  (or  sweet  potato)  and 
the  double  bass  (or  dog-house).  Nevertheless,  I  continued 
to  grieve  that  I  couldn't  play  the  piano  and  whenever  I 
had  a  chance  I  always  went  to  hear  the  great  concert  pianists 
in  action,  and  would  imagine  how  wonderful  it  would  be 
to  save  barber  bills  and  to  make  nice  old  ladies  snivel  into 
their  handkerchiefs  and  talk  nuances. 

It  then  occurred  to  me  that  I  should  heap  coals  of  fire 
upon  the  heads  of  my  parents — and  after  the  heaping,  thor 
oughly  massage  their  craniums  with  the  hot  embers,  or  in 
other  words,  rub  it  in — if  I  should  take  piano  lessons  secretly 
and  pay  for  them  out  of  my  allowance,  and  become  a  prodigy. 
Then,  on  some  beautiful  summer  evening,  when  the  balmy 
air  and  the  moonlight  and  the  mosquitoes  were  coming 
through  the  windows,  I  should  sit  down  at  the  keyboard 
and  play  Chopin's  Nocturne,  and  knock  'em  off  their  seats. 

So  I  took  three  lessons;  but  after  the  third  lesson  my  cur 
rent  appropriation  of  nine  dollars  was  entirely  exhausted. 

When  I  went  to  bed  that  night  I  was  thinking  entirely 
in  terms  of  musical  genius,  and  I  remember  saying  to  my 
self  that  I  would  cheerfully  give  $1,000,000  (against  which 
I  should  expect  credit  for  the  $9  already  expended)  if  I 
could  play  the  Marche  Militaire  of  Schubert  as  well  as 
I  wanted  to. 

That  night  I  dreamed  that  I  walked  into  the  living  room 
and  sat  down  at  the  piano  and  played  the  Marche  Militaire, 
while  Paderewski  listened,  and  eventually  took  off  his  dia 
mond  belt,  emblematic  of  the  world's  heavy-weight  piano 
championship,  and  gave  it  to  me.  I  don't  recall  that  we 
agreed  to  split  the  motion  picture  rights  but  we  probably 
did. 

For  at  least  a  week  I  dreamed  this  same  incident,  with 


HOLWORTHY    HALL  87 

variations,  sometimes  serious  and  sometimes  burlesque.  I 
am  afraid  to  buy  Freud's  best-known  book,  because  it  will 
probably  tell  me  some  fearful  things  about  these  ancient 
facts.  Nevertheless,  I  went  on  dreaming  about  this  same 
piece  of  music  until  it  occurred  to  me  that  I  had  the  basis  of 
a  story. 

I  began  to  write  this  story  one  Saturday  morning,  and 
when  I  finished  the  first  draft  I  was  astounded  to  discover 
that  it  was  midnight.  I  had  broken  a  dinner  engagement, 
and,  more  than  that,  I  had  stayed  away  from  the  Dartmouth 
football  game,  which  at  that  time,  in  Cambridge,  was  sec 
ond  in  importance  only  to  the  Yale  game.  This  was  to 
me  the  first  indication  that  a  man  could  be  sufficiently  inter 
ested  in  writing  fiction  to  make  sacrifices  for  it,  whether 
they  were  voluntary  or  involuntary,  conscious  or  unconscious. 

It  is  absolutely  no  use  in  concealing  the  identity  of  the 
editor  who  bought  this  story.  Bob  Davis  bought  it  and 
published  it  in  The  Scrap-Book  for  May,  1910,  and,  further 
more,  he  distinguished  it  by  two-color  illustrations.  I  might 
add  that  he  distinguished  in  similar  fashion  the  work  of  all 
other  authors  in  the  book. 

The  story,  as  I  wrote  it,  was  about  an  uncouth  individ 
ual  who  was  studying  for  his  Ph.  D.  in  psychology,  and  had 
worked  himself  up  to  the  verge  of  nervous  prostration  in 
preparing  his  thesis,  which  was  entitled  "The  Role  of 
Vision  in  the  Mental  Life  of  the  Mouse."  Just  as  his  own 
mentality  departed  from  him,  he  apparently  received  the 
spirit  of  the  late  Schubert,  and,  from  his  previous  status  as 
a  music-loather,  he  became,  for  a  brief  interval,  a  virtuoso. 
Then,  when  he  had  knocked  'em  off  their  seats  (you  observe 
that,  in  a  sense,  he  was  simply  acting  as  my  substitute)  he 
expired,  while  the  chorus,  off  right,  sang  the  Stein  Song — and 
then  there  were  some  leads,  and  the  magazine  continued, 
from  the  previous  issue,  the  history  of  "Tewksbury,  King  of 
the  Plungers." 

When  the  editors  of  The  Scrap-Book  bought  this  story 
they  made  only  one  definite  criticism  of  it.  They  stated  that 
the  title  of  the  hero's  thesis  was  too  silly  for  such  a  tragic 


88  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

narrative.  Unfortunately,  I  had  borrowed  the  title  of  the 
thesis  from  one  actually  written  in  the  previous  year  by  a 
gentleman  who  got  his  Ph.  D.  for  it  at  perhaps  our  most 
intellectual  university.  But  they  paid  me  twenty-five  dol 
lars  for  the  story,  and  I  took  the  twenty-five  dollars  into  a 
poker  game  and  made  a  hundred  and  fifty,  and  decided  to  be 
an  author. 

COSMO  HAMILTON 

If  the  real  reason  were  ever  given  as  to  why  men  take  to 
writing  I  don't  think  it  would  be  always  because  of  a 
virulent  attack  of  cacoethes  scribendi. 

So  far  as  I  know  men  become  writers  and  attach  them 
selves  to  a  career  which  is  probably  the  most  precarious,  heart 
breaking,  difficult  and  nerve  racking  of  all  possible  careers 
by  accident,  except  in  those  few  cases  when  authorship  is  in 
herited  like  horsemanship,  or  playing  golf  left  handed. 

In  my  case,  if  it  can  be  called  a  case,  the  cacoethes  seized 
me  in  a  moment  of  extreme  boredom  when  I  was  staying  at 
a  farmhouse  in  Normandy  in  a  gorgeous  summer  away  back 
before  the  great  war. 

At  that  time  a  career  was  being  forced  upon  me  which 
did  not  appeal  to  my  precocious  mind, — a  career  of  diplo 
macy  which  seemed  to  me  to  spell  nothing  better,  at  any 
rate  in  its  early  stages,  than  acting  the  part  of  a  glossy  man 
servant  and  writing  out  invitations  to  specially  chosen  peo 
ple  to  attend  the  functions  of  the  wife  of  a  British  am 
bassador. 

At  the  tail  of  my  teens  I  had  retired  to  this  haven  of 
refuge  to  gather  sufficient  courage  to  put  up  a  fight  against 
the  wishes  of  my  father  and  to  endeavor  to  find  some  way 
to  show  him  that  I  could  earn  a  living  in  my  own  manner 
which  was,  of  course,  not  his.  Hay-making  was  on,  and  the 
good  people  of  the  farm  were  out  and  about  every  morning 
shortly  after  daybreak  making  the  best  of  the  sun.  At 
night  they  retired  to  bed  with  the  birds,  leaving  me  lonely 
and  stranded  at  the  early  hour  of  eight. 


COSMO    HAMILTON  89 

It  so  happened  that  I  had  with  me  a  slim,  red  volume  of 
the  Autonym  Library,  called  "Some  Emotions  and  a  Moral," 
by  John  Oliver  Hobbes.  It  was  the  only  book  that  I  had  taken 
with  me  from  London  and  I  read  it  over  and  over  again. 
It  contained  no  more  than  forty  thousand  words  and  was 
touched  with  the  most  charming  satire,  and  seemed  to  have 
been  written  as  easily  as  falling  off  a  log. 

Bored  stiff,  and  with  the  audacity  which  only  belongs  to 
us  before  we  are  twenty-one,  I  sat  down  when  the  village 
was  asleep  to  write  a  book  of  the  same  length,  which  should 
be  just  as  good  and  possibly  very  much  better. 

I   began   by   setting   a   theorem   which   ran    as   follows: 

"Being  as  they  were,  it  was  quite  impossible  for  them 
to  have  done  otherwise  than  as  they  did  .  .  .  which 
is  absurd." 

Having  got  as  far  as  this  and  beginning  to  enjoy  myself 
thoroughly  I  seized  hold  of  a  big  bundle  of  thin  foreign  note 
paper  and  settled  to  work  to  write  a  story  about  the  British 
Army  in  India,  of  which  I  knew  absolutely  nothing. 

I  took  a  cockney  sergeant  who  was  in  love  with  a 
maid-servant  in  the  household  of  the  colonel  and  I  made  two 
young  subalterns  fake  the  necessary  papers  to  show  that 
he  had  inherited  an  earldom.  They  did  this  deed  to  re 
venge  themselves  upon  the  colonel's  lady  and  her  two 
daughters  for  their  snobbishness,  and  having  got  the  sergeant 
thoroughly  settled  into  the  colonel's  house  as  an  honored 
guest  with  the  two  daughters  fighting  to  become  his  wife 
I  made  them  declare  their  fake,  and,  in  what  I  supposed 
to  be  a  moment  of  great  drama,  bring  humiliation  and  con 
sternation  upon  these  typical  snobs.  It  was  very  green 
stuff  which  I  imagined  to  be  extremely  subtle  satire  and  I 
called  it  "Which  is  Absurd." 

Having  got  this  thing  out  of  my  system  and  killed  many 
a  dull  evening  in  doing  so,  I  sent  it  to  the  publisher  of  the 
Autonym  Library  with  the  following  note: 


90  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

"Sir:  I  have  the  pleasure  to  send  you  herewith,  un 
typed,  a  novel  for  your  famous  library  which  will  either 
kill  it  stone  dead  or  make  it  even  more  famous  than  it  is. 
My  address  for  the  next  ten  days  is  c/o  Madame 
Dusquesne,  Claire,  Seine-Inferieure,  France,  after  which 
it  will  be  Grand  Hotel,  Dieppe." 

Parcels  post  took  this  effort  over  to  England  and  I  there 
upon  forgot  it;  but  after  having  been  three  days  at  Dieppe, 
where  I  was  spending  the  last  of  my  money  punting  on  the 
races  and  on  the  tables  at  the  casino  with  a  laudable  idea, 
so  seldom  realized,  of  making  a  small  fortune,  I  received  a 
telegram  from  the  publisher  in  question  asking  me  to  show 
up  at  my  earliest  convenience. 

Imagine  my  excitement  and  confusion.  I  saw  myself  at 
once  half  way  up  the  ladder  which  leads  to  literary  fame 
and  able  to  approach  my  father  in  Whitehall  in  an  inde 
pendent  spirit  which  would  fill  him  both  with  pride  and 
annoyance. 

I  rushed  to  England,  making  the  night  boat  go  twice 
its  ordinary  speed,  sleepless  and  deeply  stirred.  Arrived 
at  my  rooms  in  Westminster,  which  were  under  the  eaves 
of  the  Abbey,  I  dug  out  a  top  hat,  a  very  daring  tie,  a  coat 
of  great  respectability  and,  if  I  must  confess  it,  a  pair  of 
spats. 

I  got  into  all  this  rig,  hailed  a  hansom  and  drove  to  the 
purlieus  of  Paternoster  Row. 

But  the  effect  which  I  intended  to  get  by  dashing  up  to 
the  publisher's  office  behind  a  prancing  horse  was  utterly 
lost.  Paternoster  Row  was  too  narrow  for  my  entrance 
and  the  cab  had  to  be  left  at  the  top  of  the  street. 

Nevertheless,  I  made  a  brave  pounce  upon  a  dirty-nosed 
office  boy  and  ordered  him  to  send  in  my  name  to  Mr.  Fisher 
Unwin.  He  ran  his  eyes  over  me  with  the  utmost  con 
tempt  and  merely  transferred  a  lump  of  toffee  from  one 
cheek  to  another.  Eventually  I  persuaded  him  to  take  in  my 
name,  was  kept  waiting  for  three  quarters  of  an  hour,  while 
my  feet  became  very  cold,  and  at  last  was  shown  into  a 


COSMO    HAMILTON  91 

book-lined  room  in  which,  at  a  very  formidable  desk,  sat  a 
gentleman  who  looked  like  a  patriarch,  whose  eyes  were 
cynical  and  whose  beard  was  long. 

"Good  God !"  said  he, — which  didn't  seem  to  me  to  be  a 
good  beginning — and  then  after  a  gasp  of  amazement  at  my 
juvenile  appearance  continued,  "Are  you  the  man  who 
wrote  'Which  is  Absurd.'  " 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  I,  puffing  out  my  chest. 

He  burst  out  laughing.  I  refrained  from  pulling  his  beard 
with  great  difficulty  and  remained  standing  in  an  attitude 
of  what  I  took  to  be  immense  literary  dignity. 

The  end  of  it  was  that  instead  of  receiving  a  check  for  a 
thousand  pounds,  as  I  supposed  I  should,  having  heard  that 
Hall  Caine  lived  in  a  castle,  I  left  Paternoster  Row  with 
a  ten-pound  note  in  my  pocket  and  a  contract  which  guar 
anteed  the  publication  of  the  book  in  the  Autonym  Library 
within  six  months. 

I  marked  time  till  its  appearance,  my  father  having  very 
kindly  agreed  to  give  me  a  chance  in  this  line  of  work, 
wrote  about  three  other  books  in  the  interval,  equally  bad, 
and  on  the  day  of  its  publication,  which  was  to  me  worthy 
of  ranking  with  some  of  the  greatest  days  in  the  history  of 
my  country,  I  was  introduced  to  Jerome  K.  Jerome  who  was 
then  editing  a  weekly  paper  in  which  books  were  reviewed. 
He  promised  to  review  mine  at  once  and  this  is  what  he 
wrote. 

"Which  is  Absurd,"  by  Cosmo  Hamilton  (Autonym 
Library,  Fisher  Unwin)   Quite  so. 

But  I  went  on  writing  and  now  look  at  the  damned  thing ! 

ISABEL  F.  HAPGOOD 

Did  I  ever  have  a  "Maiden  Effort"?    I  wonder! 
In  any  case,  I  am  afraid  it  must  be  classified  under 
the  head  of  "Mixed  Pickles,"  rather  than  as  one  of 
the  recognized  fifty-seven  (million)  varieties  so  well  known 
and  popular  in  all  properly  regulated  households. 


92  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

There  was  a  Church  Bazaar.  One  of  the  accompanying 
schemes,  warranted  to  prove  a  first-rate  pocket-corkscrew 
(if,  ignoring  the  Tennysonian  rule  that  "a  Sorrow's  crown 
of  sorrows  is  remembering  happier  things"  I  may  venture 
to  set  down  this  word  of  sad  significance)  for  the  extraction 
of  reluctant  coin  was  a  little  special  paper  called  "The 
Christmas  Holly,"  or  something  equally  pointed.  The 
President  of  a  Young  People's  Club  was,  ex-officio,  Editor- 
in-Chief;  also,  she  was  congenitally  unsuited  for  any  form 
of  literary  activity,  but  had  never  had  that  fact  called  to  her 
attention.  I,  a  tactless  member  of  the  staff,  mildly  objected 
to  her  "leader,"  saying  that  it  would  not  do ;  and  that  "any 
one  could  write  a  better  editorial  than  that,"  when  she  failed 
to  perceive  why.  Thereupon,  she  retorted,  with  a  degree  of 
energy  appropriate  to  Missouri  rather  than  to  Massachu 
setts,  where  the  lamentable  incident  occurred:  "Show  me!" 

I  did.  The  Committee  rejected  her  offering  and  printed 
mine.  Then  the  fun  began,  obviously  at  the  wrong  point 
for  dramatic  effects.  The  Rector  demanded  the  name  of 
the  writer,  and  got  a  refusal.  He  remarked,  loftily,  that 
he  did  not  need  to  be  told ;  his  Curate  had  written  it.  When 
laughed  at,  he  waxed  crimson  and  angry  and  asserted  that 
it  certainly  had  been  written  by  the  Curate — or  by  some 
one  with  a  mind  exactly  like  his,  or  who  had  been  a  close 
companion  of  his.  Wild  laughter — because  every  one  knew 
that  I  was  the  one  girl  in  the  parish  who  had  kept  out  of  the 
way  of  the  handsome,  supercilious  and  much  run-after 
Curate.  Also,  more  wrath  on  the  part  of  the  Rector:  and 
on  mine;  for  my  style  was,  as  I  hoped  it  still  is,  clear-cut 
and  direct  to  a  reasonable  degree.  Whereas  the  Curate  had 
recently  set  the  parish  by  the  ears  through  a  sermon  of  his 
customary  flowery  pattern. 

He  had  tried  to  say  that  the  career  of  St.  Paul  had  turned 
out  as  different  from  what  it  would  have  been,  had  he  con 
tinued  the  line  he  originally  pursued  as  Saul,  as  are  the 
courses  and  mouths  of  the  Mississippi  and  the  St.  Lawrence 


ISABEL   F.    HAPGOOD  93 

Rivers  which,  starting  from  practically  the  same  point,  flow 
as  far  apart  and  wind  up  at  about  as  diametrically  opposite 
points  as  could  well  be  devised.  That  sermon  sent  the  con 
gregation  to  their  New  Testaments;  for  one  half  insisted  that 
he  said  St.  Paul  was  born  on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi 
while  the  other  half  swore  that  he  had  assigned  the  Saint's 
birthplace  to  the  banks  of  the  St.  Lawrence. 

I  had  never  heard  the  man  in  lighter  vein  than  a  sermon, 
had  met  him  about  twice;  and  my  editorial  was  not  sermon- 
like  in  quality.  He  died  a  Bishop,  but  I  still  maintain  that 
my  mind  was  never  in  the  least  like  his. 

.  .  .  The  same  little  sheet,  hard  up  for  matter,  con 
tained  four  or  five  other  contributions  from  my  pen — all 
over  fictitious  names — such  as  metrical  translations  from 
various  languages,  and  an  original  Sonnet.  And  with  these 
Mixed  Pickles  my  literary  efforts  ended.  For  a  number  of 
years  I  wrote  nothing.  In  other  words,  I  did  not  even 
begin  to  write,  in  the  accepted  sense  of  the  word. 

My  Maiden  Effort  in  a  public  sense  also  belongs  under 
the  heading  of  "Mixed  Pickles";  this  time  with  the  fancy 
name  of  "Picalilli,"  I  think.  It  was  my  book,  "The  Epic 
Songs  of  Russia,"  a  compilation  and  translation  from  obso 
lete  Russian  (with  some  original  matter)  put  into  appro 
priate  language  where  I  had  to  invent  adequate  terms,  as 
though  I  had  been  a  poet  myself. 

That  was  accepted  by  the  first  publisher  to  whom  I  of 
fered  it.  The  same  was  true  of  all  I  wrote  or  translated 
for  a  long  time  thereafter.  Later  on,  I  managed  to  as 
semble  a  superb  collection  of  Rejected  Addresses,  though  I 
made  no  special  effort  in  that  direction,  "Maiden"  or  other 
wise,  even  if  that  sort  of  thing  does  legitimately  belong  to 
the  profession.  Unfortunately,  all  these  came  at  the  wrong 
point  for  thrilling  dramatic  effect  in  a  Literary  Career.  I 
may  add  that  that  Collection  is  not  for  sale,  although  it 
contains  precious  specimens  of  gold,  silver  and  lead,  as  do 
all  similar  priceless  Literary  Treasures. 


94  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

HENRY  SYDNOR  HARRISON 

When  I  was  nineteen  and  lived  in  Brooklyn,  a  friend 
who  was  dining  with  us  one  evening  happened  to 
tell  us  of  a  slight  misadventure  that  had  befallen 
him  some  nights  earlier. 

The  facts  were  these:  He  was  alone  in  his  house,  family 
away,  servants  on  a  holiday;  it  was  late  and  he  was  exactly 
ready  for  bed  save  for  the  donning  of  his  pajamas.  Sud 
denly  the  doorbell  pealed  in  the  still  midnight.  Having 
tossed  a  bathrobe  on  over  next-to-nothing,  he  descended  and 
opened  the  door.  In  the  vestibule  stood  a  boy  with  a  tele 
gram.  Our  friend  unthinkingly  stepped  out  into  the  vesti 
bule,  and  the  door  did  just  what  any  door  of  spirit  would 
have  done  under  circumstances;  it  clicked  shut  behind  him. 
Our  friend  was  ill-dressed  for  projecting  about;  the  Brook 
lyn  locksmiths  were  as  I  recall  it  early  retirers  in  those  days ; 
and  he  had  a  time  of  it  trying  to  get  back  into  that  house 
again. 

I  did  not  know  then  that  nearly  everybody  has  had  this 
adventure,  or  at  least  nearly  everybody's  friend,  and  I  in 
stantaneously  thought  to  myself,  "Ah,  a  story!" 

So  I  wrote  the  anecdote  "up" — more  or  less — with,  I  fear, 
a  very  thin  fictional  veneer ;  and  as  if  myself  perceiving  that 
my  offering  was  of  journalistic  texture  rather  than  pure  art, 
I  sent  it  to  the  Sunday  Editor  of  The  New  York  Herald. 
I  think  that  was  the  first  place  I  sent  it  to  but  I  can't  be 
sure  at  this  late  day — at  any  rate,  the  Herald  editor  took  it. 
He  paid  me  eleven  dollars  and  some  cents  and,  better  than 
that,  he  sent  me  a  letter  of  acceptance  which  I  could  frame 
and  did,  proving  to  all  beholders  that  I  was  of  the  chosen 
who  put  words  on  paper  in  such  a  fashion  that  they  can  be 
exchanged  for  currency.  I  kept  that  framed  letter  a  long 
time,  till  at  last  the  suns  and  winds  of  many  seasons  had 
faded  it  to  a  blank  white  page. 

As  I  remember,  that  was  the  first  story  I  ever  offered  for 
sale  and  I  sold  it  and  spent  the  money.  A  suspicious  debut ! 
But,  alas,  the  splendid  triumphs  of  youth  do  not  always  sus- 


HENRY    SYDNOR    HARRISON  95 

tain  themselves,  and  twelve  years  later  my  fictions  were 
being  rejected  right  and  left. 

In  the  years  intervening  I  had  been  trying  to  write,  off 
and  on  in  what  leisure  I  had,  with  mediocre  success,  or  per 
haps  a  little  less.  I  suppose  I  wrote  twenty-five  or  thirty 
short  stories  in  those  years  and  sold  about  half  of  them. 
In  the  year  1910-1911,  however,  my  time  was  my  own;  and 
in  that  winter  I  think  I  wrote  eleven  stories.  My  pro 
ficiency,  as  I  saw  it,  had  increased,  but  my  batting  average 
slid  downward.  Of  the  eleven,  I  sold  but  three. 

The  situation  was  a  little  curious,  for  at  the  time  I  had 
two  book  manuscripts  accepted  for  publication;  they  were 
both  published  that  Spring;  and  as  the  better  of  them  had  a 
considerable  vogue  in  the  months  following,  I  very  soon 
found  myself  in  the  pleasant  position  familiar  to  writers 
in  such  circumstances.  I  had  the  sensation  of  tables  abruptly 
and  agreeably  turned;  sweet  revenges  were  in  my  hand,  re 
prisals,  too,  if  I  liked,  and  sometimes  I  did  like.  Such  of 
the  old  stories  as  still  seemed  worth  printing  were  produced 
from  the  drawer  on  terms  that  would  have  seemed  to  me 
fantastic  just  a  little  while  before,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
gratitude  I  should  have  felt  earlier  but  did  not  feel  then,  for 
the  "recognition,"  so  yearned  for  by  the  neglected. 

It  was  funny  enough  to  get  letters  asking  if  I  couldn't 
and  wouldn't  write  stories  from  magazines  which  had  been 
rejecting  my  stories  steadily,  usually  with  printed  slips,  for 
a  long  time.  And  yet  it  did  not  seem  to  me  entirely  funny, 
either,  and  when  one  editor  wrote  to  me  warmly  praising 
and  "envying"  a  published  story  which  he,  personally,  had 
rejected  the  year  before,  I  could  only  feel  that  that  editor's 
praises  were  worth  very  little,  and  that,  in  short,  the  line 
had  been  crossed. 

I  felt  rather  strangely  about  some  of  these  curiosities  at 
the  time  and  my  come-backs  to  my  new  well-wishers,  who 
had  hitherto  so  successfully  dissembled  their  love,  sometimes 
took  a  regrettably  sarcastic  tone.  Moreover,  wishing  to 
serve  the  young  writer  some  sort  of  good  turn — at  least,  I 
think  it  was  as  noble  as  that — I  wrote  an  account  of  my 


96  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

experiences  and  my  changed  fortunes  for  The  Atlantic 
Monthly;  a  bit  of  self-expression  which  some  of  the  editors, 
I  am  afraid,  have  never  quite  forgiven  me.  They  thought 
that  I  should  have  been  a  good  fellow  and  let  bygones  be 
bygones.  But  my  position  was  that  nothing  was  bygone, 
particularly,  for  the  solemn  truth  was  that  I  was  the  very 
same  fellow  in  1911  that  I  was  in  1910,  and  very  much  the 
same  writer. 

JOSEPH  HERGESHEIMER 

The  students  of  the  earnest  school  of  American  "lit 
erary"  autobiography  can  have  but  an  overwhelming 
condemnation  for  the  course  which  led  me  to  the  pub 
lication  of  my  books  and  stories.  I  am  certain  that,  in  ad 
dition,  they  would  be  affronted.  The  actual  facts  are  rather 
an  amazing  refutation  of  a  number  of  celebrated  "moral 
truths."  Men  with  a  nice  sense  of  performing  long-drawn 
and  disagreeable  duties  will  find  nothing  here  to  reassure 
them  that  virtue  is  its  own  reward,  or  rather  that  such  virtue 
only  is  rewarded.  The  room  where  I  am  writing  is  low 
with  rafters  and  a  wide  stone  fireplace  darkening  since  1712; 
there  is  old  mahogany,  early  Empire  and  Heppelwhite,  dull 
rose,  the  deep  blue  of  Staffordshire  china  and  wrought  iron. 
The  windows  look  out  on  uninterrupted  greenery,  maples 
ruffling  in  a  delightful  morning  air,  and  terraced  grass.  Be 
hind  the  long  low  gray  stone  house  the  peas  are  in  pod; 
there  is  a  gardener  like  a  crusted  English  clay  pipe;  Aire 
dales  are  on  the  lawn  and  communicative  brown  owls  in  a 
willow.  From  a  reasonable  angle  this  is  a  great  deal,  it  is 
perfect  of  its  kind,  and  it  is  all,  all,  the  result  of  perversity. 
There  was  hardly  a  stage  in  the  process  of  its  realization 
that  would  not  serve  as  an  illustration  of  the  ways  that  lead 
to  ruin.  Practically  every  young  man,  who  in  the  lessons 
comes  on  disaster,  arrives  by  the  route  which  brought  me,  un 
der  forty,  to  this  verdant  tranquillity.  In  the  first  place, 
largely  through  persistent  illness,  I  spent  a  complete  child 
hood  doing  nothing  in  the  world.  I  did  it  very  well  indeed, 


JOSEPH    HERGESHEIMER  97 

in  a  large  mid-Victorian  house,  with  a  clashing  bell  and 
prayers  morning  and  evening,  and  walls — the  library,  the 
halls,  the  music-room — lined  with  distinguished  books ; 
every  book  a  successful  Scotch  Presbyterian  type-founder 
would  possess.  During  this  period  my  mother  subscribed 
for  a  series  of  paper-bound  love  stories. 

After  a  number  of  pleasant  years  in  the  company  of  the 
Duchess  and  a  stainless  Indian  named  Deerfoot,  I  was  in 
troduced  to  school.  I  was  a  timid,  fattish  boy,  with  an  in 
curable  aversion  to  study  and  a  surpassing  clumsiness  at 
games.  It  was  a  Quaker  school  with  both  girls  and  boys, 
and  my  failure  with  one  was  as  dismal  as  with  the  other. 
But  this  didn't  last  long  for,  in  the  consistency  I  have  set 
out  to  reveal,  at  the  end  of  two  or  perhaps  three  terms  I 
definitely  withdrew  myself  from  the  field  of  education. 

Advancing  from  the  Duchess  to  Ouida,  I  went  on  as  I 
had  before;  at  seventeen,  I  entered  an  Academy  of  Fine 
Arts.  There  I  did  one  day's  work  in  fifteen,  stood,  together 
with  other  gesticulating  thumbs,  before  the  celebrated  paint 
ings  in  the  gallery  above  the  schools,  and  had  an  affair  of 
the  heart.  This  occupied  me  until  I  was  twenty-one.  Then, 
with  the  numerous  grandchildren  of  the  Presbyterian  type 
founder,  now  unfortunately  dead,  I  received  a  very  satis 
factory  sum  of  money.  My  cousins  invested  their  legacies 
in  industries  or  discretion;  mine  I  immediately  dissipated, 
mostly  in  Venice  in  the  country  of  Italy. 


In  the  period  that  followed,  I  was  as  convincingly  detri 
mental  as  any  moralist  could  wish.  I  kept  what  is  every 
where  recognized  as  low  company,  and  enjoyed  most  the 
proprietor  of  a  night-hawk  cab. 

Then  one  morning  in  early  October  I  was  leaning  a 
swimming  head  from  my  window  over  an  open  suburban 
street,  the  air  sheeted  with  pale  gold  and  veiled  with  the 
pungent  haze  of  burning  leaves,  when  suddenly  every  aspect 
of  my  existence  became  insupportable.  It  was  as  if  a  voice 
had  shouted  in  my  ear.  Within  an  hour,  with  a  few  necessi- 


98  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

ties  like  books  and  chocolate  in  a  glazed  bag  such  as  children 
carry  to  school,  I  had  left  forever  all  the  past  circumstances 
of  my  life.  I  went  on  a  walking  trip,  which  consisted  in 
taking  a  train  to  Harper's  Ferry. 

At  the  station,  asking  for  a  hotel,  I  encountered  a  woman 
bound  for  one  on  the  bluff  above  and  we  went  up  together. 
She  talked  civilly,  and  thoroughly  weary  of  all  that  I  had 
been,  I  informed  her  that  I  was  English,  a  nephew  of  Lord 
Kelvin,  the  astronomer — the  first  name  that  occured  to  me. 
The  hotel,  except  for  my  companion  and  an  aging  but  vig 
orous  man,  was  empty.  We  had  supper  at  a  small  table 
lit  with  a  single  lamp  in  a  vast  shadowy  place  of  faded  sum 
mer  greens;  where  it  was  revealed,  as  humanely  as  possible, 
that  the  lady  was  a  member  of  a  notable  British  family  and 
had  come  to  the  United  States  to  lecture  on  the  private 
life  of  Queen  Victoria,  and  could  recognize  any  nephew  of 
a  nobleman  across  the  Potomac;  while  the  other  was  Simon 
Newcomb,  the  celebrated  American  astronomer,  an  intimate 
of  Kelvin's,  and  perhaps  the  one  man  on  the  continent  who 
knew  that  he  had  no  such  relative  as  I  had  announced  my 
self  to  be. 

Yet  observe  the  sequel  of  this  reprehensible  fabrication — 
it  set  in  motion  a  mild  entertainment  in  which  I  learned 
that  the  lecturer  was,  too,  a  novelist;  she  had  produced  a 
respectable  number  of  volumes  under  the  pseudonym  of 
Lucas  Cleeve;  and  she  had  the  proofs  of  one  at  the  hotel. 
On  the  day  of  my  arrival  her  eyes  had  failed  from  continual 
strain  and  the  acidulous  smoke  of  cheap  cigarettes;  that 
evening  I  was  correcting  her  galley  proofs,  while  she  sat 
beside  me  with  her  head  swathed  in  a  damp  towel,  emphasiz 
ing  with  the  cigarettes  what  should  be  noted  and  changed. 

Throughout  this  process  I  was  conscious  of  a  growing  dis 
satisfaction  at  her  story,  with  the  result  that  I  immediately 
wrote  a  novel  of  my  own.  Naturally  it  was  nothing  more 
than  a  rather  crude  joke  at  the  expense  of  my  labor  and 
hopes.  Now,  thoroughly  engaged,  I  determined  to  make  a 
further  effort.  In  the  search  for  a  place  at  once  quiet  and 
inexpensive,  I  took  a  Virginia  mountain  stage  that  put  me 


JOSEPH    HERGESHEIMER  99 

down,  with  a  decrepit  typewriter,  in  a  little  village  lost  in 
the  midst  of  deep,  narrow,  green  valleys  and  high  ranges. 
There,  in  the  detached  part  of  a  farmhouse  on  the  slope  be 
yond  the  village,  I  addressed  myself  to  the  difficulties  of 
creative  writing. 

If  I  had  had  any  idea  of  what  was  to  follow,  I  would 
have  made  a  more  careful  choice  of  subject,  for  I  was  con 
demned  to  rewrite  over  twenty  times  a  trivial  affair  about 
a  calf,  a  country  girl,  and  a  professor  in  search  of  health. 
In  the  course  of  the  story  the  professor  accidentally  shot 
the  calf  ...  the  girl  he  married.  The  typewriter 
broke  down  at  the  most  inconvenient  moments,  the  lettered 
caps  fell  off  and  lodged  in  inaccessible  parts  of  the  mechan 
ism,  the  type-bars  tangled  and  the  ribbon  was  full  of 
holes.  I  would,  as  I  thought,  finish  the  story,  and  get  into 
bed  with  unutterable  satisfaction,  only  to  wake  sometime  in 
the  night  with  the  realization  that  I  had  again  made  an  inex 
cusable  blunder;  and  the  following  morning  start  a  fresh 
page  with  the  title  which  I  have  since  mercifully  forgotten. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  express  the  depth  of  my  ignorance 
at  that  time;  I  could  follow  the  superficial  logic  of  events, 
and  I  had  a  vague  idea,  from  its  appearance,  when  a  sentence 
was  completely  wrong.  That  was  the  extent  of  my  literary 
knowledge  and  background.  I  spoke  of  writing  this  over 
twenty  times,  that  was  the  entire  story ;  a  great  many  periods, 
yes,  and  paragraphs,  were  repeated  a  hundred  or  more. 
Eventually  I  knew  the  whole  dull,  stupid  business  by  heart, 
and  recited,  with  indescribable  bitterness,  entire  pages  to  the 
trout  I  caught  in  the  virgin  mountain  streams. 

Finally  I  was  convinced  that  I  could  do  no  more,  and 
sent  the  manuscript  to  a  magazine.  It  returned,  but  with 
an  encouraging  letter,  a  suggestion  to  try  it  with  a  periodical 
that  specialized  in  light  fiction.  Light!  It  seemed  to  me, 
the  heaviest  thing  ever  created.  It  was  fourteen  laborious 
years  later  before  I  sold  a  story. 

Looking  again  about  my  pleasant  room,  this  narrative 
seems  incredible.  I  had  left  undone  nearly  everything  I 


100  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

should  have  done  and  did,  what  is  agreed,  comes  to  nothing. 
Even  the  fourteen  years  of  labor  were  systematically  dis 
couraged,  or  rather  regarded  as  an  ingenious  defense  of 
persistent  idleness.  I  had  literally  nothing  to  show  but 
baskets  of  wasted  paper  and  a  few  printed  rejection  slips. 
A  relative  to  whom  I  said  "kind  of  things,"  pointed  out 
that  a  literary  ambition  was,  well — unfortunate.  I  hadn't 
read  Thackeray  and  didn't  like  Dickens,  and — major  crime 
— I  never  looked  at  the  newspapers.  An  aunt  remained 
awake  one  entire  night  because  I  mentioned  Darwin.  No 
education,  you  see,  and  no  habit  of  industry,  no  background 
of  the  masters  nor  corner  filled  in  the  family  pew;  and 
against  this  only  the  scribbling. 

Yet  the  result,  the  dark  rafters  and  broad  hearths,  the 
emerald  sod  and  low  eaves  echoing  with  birds,  charming  blue 
eyes,  is  the  reward  promised  for  industrious  righteousness. 
There  is  a  drawer  full  of  heartening  communications  from 
impressive  sources.  Solid  men  in  approved  vocations  admit 
me  to  their  confidence  and  society.  .  .  .  And  only  the 
scribbling. 

Asked  for  explanations  by  a  large  class  for  the  study  of 
story  writing,  I  sat  in  a  silent  quandary — should  I  admit 
the  Duchess  or  tell  them  of  the  weeks  in  Venice,  or  say  at 
once  that  any  one  of  them  might  with  great  ease  prove  me 
an  entire  ignoramus?  The  instructor  gently  prodded  me: 
they  want  to  know  about  the  tricks  by  which  you  get  effects, 
he  put  in.  This  was  not  helpful.  In  self-defense  I  re 
peated  the  history  of  my  first  two  published  novels.  One, 
of  which  a  thousand  copies  were  exempt  from  royalties,  sold 
nearly  nine  hundred ;  the  single  financial  activity  connected 
with  the  other  was  the  privilege  of  later  buying  the  copy 
right  and  plates. 

I  was  still  opposed  to  both  Providence  and  propriety,  for 
the  subject  of  one  novel  was  a  boy's  purity — in  a  world 
where  that  quality  is  a  cause  for  excruciating  jest — and  the 
second  the  failure  of  an  aging  man  to  repair  a  spiritual 
wrong  with  gold.  People,  I  learned,  preferred  to  read  of 
immaculate  young  women  and  be  reassured  concerning  the 


JOSEPH    HERGESHEIMEH  I'Ol 

money  to  the  obtaining  of  which  they  sacrificed  so  much. 
The  earlier  indifference  gave  place  to  a  prodigious  amount 
of  advice. 

It  was  continued  by  the  editors  who  wrote  me  after  a 
story  or  so  appeared  in  a  highly  reputable  place.  Enthusiastic 
letters  arrived  and  I  answered  enthusiastically  with  manu 
scripts.  The  admonitions:  our  readers  demand  more  opti 
mistic  and  vital  stuff.  More  action!  Mary,  the  daughter 
of  the  wealthy  manufacturer,  must  marry  Alfred,  the 
laborer,  who  at  imminent  peril  bursts  open  the  fire-escape 
doors  locked  by  the  villain  and  releases  the  panic-stricken 
girls  in  the  loft.  Still  more  action,  if  Alfred  is  equally  the 
child  of  a  wealthy  manufacturer  in  disguise. 

I  was,  in  addition,  condemned  for  dealing  with  a  love 
slightly  different  from  the  eugenic  legend  of  the  stork,  and 
for  deducing  from  the  movement  of  women's  skirts  that 
they  were  propelled  by  legs.  Or  else  I  was  metaphorically 
pounded  on  the  back  and  invited  to  write,  for  disturbing 
sums,  gingery  serials.  Without  conviction  in  either  direc 
tion,  I  fell  between.  It  was  then  discovered  by  the  erudite 
that  my  books  held  actual  grammatical  errors — infinitives 
were  severed,  adjectives  crowded  in  unauthorized  proces 
sion.  These  criminal  facts  were  exposed ;  yet,  in  spite  of 
them,  I  saw  a  novel  of  mine  being  read  in  a  Pullman  car. 
In  spite  of  them  other  publishers  appeared  and  other 
readers. 

Almost  nothing  can  be  said  in  defense  of  such  a  career, 
a  composition  of  wilful  idleness  and  labor,  unsupported  by 
any  vision  of  success.  It  is  obviously  a  provocation  to  virtue 
that,  as  a  result,  I  should  be  able  to  smoke  very  long  and 
very  pale  brown  cigars  with  an  import  stamp  on  the  box.  I 
have  no  business  with  a  fine  Airedale  terrier  named  after 
Mr.  Conrad's  Marlow,  nor  a  wife  with  a  flapping  pink  hat 
and  the  blue  eyes  of  which  I  spoke.  Remember  the  lament 
able  companions — Smith,  the  night-hawk  driver  and  fallen 
prize-fighter,  the  thieves  and  wasted,  the  tragic  sensualists. 
Remember  all  the  opportunities  ignored — my  grandfather's 
classic  library,  the  education,  the  money. 


102  My  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

If  my  first  novel  had  been  of  the  "vital"  sort  people  pre 
fer,  it  might  have  sold  half  a  million  copies  instead  of  nearly 
nine  hundred.  That  is  a  consideration;  but  grass  can  be 
only  so  green,  a  terrier  no  more  than  faithful. 

Then  there  are  friends,  personal,  and  friends  of  my  books, 
to  record.  They  must  be  the  final  indignity  to  the  truly 
worthy.  No  one  has  better;  I  am  unable  to  credit  the 
statement  that  one  gets  the  friends  he  deserves. 

I  have  written  the  last  word  of  another  novel,  preposterous 
now  in  time  and  setting.  It  will  be  published  while  count 
less  other  books  written  by  the  most  exemplary  will  be  re 
fused,  and  justly  annoyed  superiority  will  endure  the  strain 
of  again  seeing  my  self-indulgent  countenance  looking  out 
at  them  from  the  pages  of  their  favorite  reliable  journals. 
.  .  .  Tough! 

JAMES  HOPPER 

My  maiden  effort  was  two.  I  am  aware  of  the  fact 
that  there  is  something  wrong  about  this  sentence 
both  grammatically  and  physiologically  but,  rushing 
along,  have  no  time  to  fix  it. 

Also,  these  two  maiden  efforts  were  the  product  much  less 
of  effort  than  of  a  certain  cussedness. 

Somewhere  around  the  age  of  fourteen,  I  fell  into  a 
streak  of  perversity  which  lasted  several  years.  I,  who  up 
to  that  time  had  been  a  good  little  boy,  peaceful  and  diligent, 
collecting  with  regularity  report  cards  full  of  A's  and  Ones, 
and  One  Hundreds,  who  occupied  the  seat  of  honor  on  the 
boys'  side  of  the  room,  and  was  captain  in  the  spelling- 
matches — I  suddenly  and  inexplicably  entered  upon  a  long 
and  stubborn  duel  with  my  teachers — the  teachers  whose 
pride  and  joy  I  had  been. 

Whenever  called  to  recite  now,  I  would  smile  a  small 
superior  smile  and  say  "I  don't  know" — being  careful  to 
pronounce  the  phrase  with  an  inflection  which  would  leave 
the  teacher  forever  doubtful  as  to  whether  I  had  or  had  not 
known.  It  was  at  that  time  that  I  changed  my  copper-plate, 


JAMES    HOPPER  103 

impeccably  Spencerian  handwriting  for  my  present  singular 
and  ignoble  chirography — one  which  astounds  me  anew  each 
time  I  am  placed  face  to  face  with  it. 

Another  of  my  tricks  was  to  look  far,  far  away,  with 
idiot  dreaming  eyes,  while  my  patient  teacher  expounded 
with  reiteration,  with  all  the  known  pedagogic  wiles,  some 
intricate  point  in  the  mathematics  of  interest  and  insurance, 
of  carpet-laying  and  wall-plastering. 

But  where  the  climax  of  scandal  in  my  conduct  was 
reached  was  in  the  matter  of  "compositions." 

I  flatly  refused  to  write  "compositions."  The  teacher 
could  engross  with  the  most  loving  care,  with  cat-like  cajol- 
ings  of  curve  and  flourish  and  light-and-shade  with  chalk 
upon  the  board  such  subject  for  our  meditations,  such  provo 
cation  to  the  assault  of  our  pens,  as  "The  Advantages  and 
Disadvantages  of  Flats  as  Compared  with  Detached  Houses." 
I  refused  to  bite,  I  refused  to  fall.  I  sat  lack-lustre-eyed  and 
inert  in  my  seat,  with  pen  idle  in  the  slot.  She  could  sum 
mon  me  to  her  desk,  and  with  all  her  arts  of  persuasion  seek 
to  persuade;  she  could  try  tender  expostulation  or  severe 
sarcasm — nothing  doing.  "I  can't  write  about  that"  was 
all  that  could  be  gotten  out  of  me. 

Usually,  I  finally  landed  in  the  Principal's  office.  The 
Principal — he  was  a  man — always  said  the  same  thing.  He 
looked  at  me  thoughtfully  and  said,  kindly:  "Well,  if  you 
can't  write  about  that  subject,  we'll  let  you  write  about 
another."  He  thought  a  long  time,  then  smiled  brightly, 
and  said:  "Why  don't  you  write  the  story  of  your  life?" 

But  I  refused  to  write  the  story  of  my  life. 

What  was  the  matter  with  me  those  days?  I  am  not 
sure.  But  I  think  it  was  simply  the  assertion  of  the  young 
male.  The  young  male  discovering  suddenly  to  his  disgust 
that  he  was  being  taught  and  ruled  and  bossed  by  women. 
By  arid  old  maids. 

This  lasted  two  years.  How  did  I  (for  I  did)  get  through 
the  Grammar  School?  That  is  today  a  profound  mystery 
to  me.  For  two  years  I  steadfastly  refused  to  write  a  com 
position;  yet  at  the  end  of  the  two  years  I  was  in  High 


104  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

School.  It  must  be  that  beneath  the  arid  exterior  of  those 
old-maid  school  teachers  there  beat  hearts  tenderly  maternal 
and  indulgent  and  wise.  I  say  wise  because,  looking  it  over, 
I  am  very  glad  I  did  not  stick  forever  in  the  grammar 
grades — or  finish  my  education  in  the  grammar  grades.  My 
hair  rises  at  the  thought:  I  would  have  missed  all  the  good 
time  I  had  later  playing  football. 

A  first-year  student  in  High  School  (we  were  called 
Juniors  in  those  days),  I  was  still  in  revolt.  And  the  first 
subject  given  us  for  composition  in  English  I  took  as  a 
personal  insult.  The  subject  was:  An  Original  Story. 

An  Original  Story!  I  thought.  What  rot!  Why,  kids 
couldn't  write  stories.  Stories  were  written  by  writers. 
Famed  writers — with  beards.  I  looked  about  me  with  con 
tempt  at  the  bent  backs  of  all  my  little  schoolmates  already 
innocently  at  work  at  this  impossibly  pretentious  task.  They 
didn't  know,  of  course.  But  /  did.  By  Jove,  I  wouldn't 
do  it,  that's  all;  I  wouldn't! 

Then  it  occurred  to  me  that  perhaps  what  I  had  been  able 
to  pull  off  in  grammar  school  would  not  go  in  high  school, 
that  perhaps  here  wile  would  have  more  chance  than  open 
defiance.  I  sought  some  stratagem  by  which  I  could  cir 
cumvent  the  teacher,  by  which,  in  some  way,  I  could  punish 
her — and  found  it.  I  knew !  I  would  plagiarize !  I  would 
write  something  I  had  read — and  she'd  never  know  it !  But 
I  would  know  it,  and  thus  be  avenged ! 

There  was  a  little  story  I  had  read  which  I  remembered 
perfectly.  It  occurred  in  one  of  Jules  Verne's  books — in 
"The  Children  of  Captain  Grant."  It  had  to  do  with  a 
boy  who,  hunting  birds'  nests,  had  been  caught  in  the 
chimney  of  an  old  castle — remaining  in  that  awesome  situa 
tion  for  twenty-four  hours  before  being  rescued. 

I  wrote  that  story  with  my  tongue  in  my  cheek.  It  stood 
there  in  perfect  picture  before  my  mind's  eye;  I  could  re 
member  every  word  of  it,  every  turn  of  phrase.  With  my 
tongue  in  my  cheek,  I  toiled  to  render  it  exactly  as  I  had 
read  it,  taking  a  malicious  pleasure  in  the  thoroughness  of 
my  dishonesty. 


JAMES    HOPPER  105 

A  week  later,  before  the  class,  the  teacher  (and  really,  I 
see  it  now,  she  was  a  most  charming  young  woman)  re 
ported  on  the  compositions.  "And,"  she  said,  at  the  end, 
"there  is  one  story  which  is  so  good  that  it  deserves  to  be 
published  in  the  school  paper.  That  story  was  written  by 
James  Hopper." 

I  blushed — and  the  blush  was  not  merely,  as  she  thought, 
the  natural  modesty  of  the  sterling  author.  I  went  home 
troubled  by  my  conscience.  Remorse  pricked  me.  By  eve 
ning,  seized  with  a  perverse  desire  to  make  sure  of  the  com 
pleteness  of  my  transgression,  I  got  out  "The  Children  of 
Captain  Grant,"  and  looked  up  my  story—Verne's  story,  I 
mean.  I  turned  all  the  pages  over  carefully.  And  it  wasn't 
there.  It  wasn't  there  at  all.  All  there  was  was  one  line. 
Somebody  said  "Once  I  was  caught  in  a  chimney."  And 
that  was  all. 

So,  you  see,  my  maiden  effort  was  really  a  maiden  pla 
giarism — which  failed.  Since  it  failed,  then  my  second,  ef 
fort  is  the  maiden  one,  and  the  first  sentence  of  my  paper 
is  grammatical,  and  I  am  glad  I  did  not  change  it.  One 
should  never  correct  anything.  If  one  will  only  write 
enough  after  a  mistake,  the  mistake  always  automatically 
rights  itself. 

I  meant  to  tell  you  about  this  second  maiden  effort  which 
—while  the  first  was  an  attempt  at  plagiarism  which  proved 
original — was  a  plagiarism  which  wasn't — was  an  attempt 
at  something  startlingly  original  which  later  proved  to  be  a 
plagiarism.  But  I  have  already  passed  out  of  the  space  se 
verely  allotted  by  the  editor.  I'm  out  of  bounds — and  vanish. 


AVERY  HOPWOOD 

My  first  serious  attempt  at  literary  expression  took  the 
form  of  a  novel.     It  was  brought  forth  at  the  age 
of   nine,    and   bore   the   name   "Sweet   Bessie,    the 
Light-House    Keeper's    Daughter,    or    Love    among    the 
Kentish  Hills."     It  only  reached  its  second  chapter — a  cur- 


106  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

tailment  which  I  cannot  but  regret  when  I  re-read  one  of  its 
interesting  passages: 

"One  morning  a  few  days  after  they  were  married 
the  young  husband  came  into  Bessie's  room,  and  what 
was  his  surprise  to  see,  lying  beside  her,  a  new-born 
baby  daughter." 

But  the  editor  has  suggested  that  the  world  at  large  and 
the  literary  beginner  in  particular  might  be  more  vitally  in 
terested  in  that  first  work  of  a  writer  which  was  not  only 
given  to  the  world,  but  purchased  by  the  world!  So  here 
goes! 

In  my  Junior  year  at  the  University  of  Michigan  I  was 
gravitating  between  the  novel  and  the  drama.  Or  rather,  I 
had  already  decided,  with  youthful  exuberance,  that  I  would 
express  myself  frequently  and  brilliantly  in  both  those  fields 
— not  to  mention  trifling  excursions  into  the  short  story  and 
the  essay. 

And  then,  upon  a  day  of  destiny,  I  came  upon  an  article 
which  Louis  Defoe,  the  dramatic  critic  of  the  New  lYork 
World,  had  written  for  our  college  magazine.  Mr.  Defoe, 
himself  an  alumnus  of  the  university,  pointed  out  to  the 
undergraduates  the  golden  rewards  which  might  possibly 
await  such  of  them  as  turned  to  playwriting.  I  was  par 
ticularly  interested  in  his  account  of  how  Clyde  Fitch  had, 
by  a  wave  of  his  pen,  so  to  speak,  created  for  himself  town 
houses  and  automobiles  and  country  places  with  peacocks  and 
swimming  pools.  I  didn't  care  so  much  for  the  peacocks, 
but  my  soul  did  yearn  for  the  swimming  pools — with  a  coun 
try  house  or  two  attached. 

And  so  I  took  to  playwriting.  I  hit  upon  a  theme  for  a 
comedy — the  influence  of  clothes  upon  feminine  morals — 
but  it  was  not  until  after  my  graduation  that  I  found  time 
to  write  this,  my  first  play,  "Clothes."  I  evolved  it  in 
Cleveland,  typed  six  copies  of  it  and  descended  upon  New 
York. 

I  left  the  six  copies  with  six  different  managers. 


AVERY   HOPWOOD  107 

Four  weeks  later  I  heard  from  one  of  these  managerial 
firms — Wagenhals  and  Kemper,  who  accepted  the  piece  and 
paid  me  advance  royalty  upon  it.  I  later  revised  the  play 
with  the  assistance  of  my  very  good  friend  Channing  Pol 
lock,  and  it  was  successfully  produced,  with  Miss  Grace 
George  in  the  leading  role. 

It  will  be  observed  that  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  escape 
the  long  and  weary  waiting  period,  which  seems  to  be  the 
lot  of  most  writers — particularly  writers  for  the  stage. 
This  was  partly  luck,  but  it  was,  too,  it  seems  to  me,  partly 
due  to  the  fact  that  I  had  done  a  great  deal  of  re-writing 
upon  my  play  before  I  submitted  it  to  a  producer.  Dion 
Boucicault's  dictum,  "Plays  are  not  written,  but  re-written," 
has  become  trite  in  the  repetition  but  it  is  still  a  good  work 
ing  motto  for  any  dramatist — and  especially  for  the  novice. 

If  the  embryo  dramatist  will  really  write  one  play — not 
just  half-write  it — if  he  will  wring  his  subject  dry,  if  he 
will  expend  all  possible  thought  and  energy  upon  it,  before 
he  sends  it  forth  for  judgment,  he  will  arrive  at  a  success 
ful  production  much  more  quickly  than  if  he  dashes  off  a 
succession  of  manuscripts,  no  one  of  which  is  truly  rounded 
or  complete. 

EMERSON  HOUGH 

It  is  an  Eocene  proposition,  but  I  seem  to  remember  sit 
ting  astride  a  fence  one  afternoon  facing  my  younger 
brother,  likewise  festooned.  It  was  heart  to  heart.  I 
had  no  other  confidant — I  dared  not  tell  my  father,  a  stern 
old  Virginian  who  intended  to  rear  one  son  (myself)  for 
the  law,  another  (my  confidant)  for  the  medical  profes 
sion,  and  a  third  (still  younger)  for  the  ministry.  Not 
long  before  this  time — I  presume  I  then  was  ten,  twelve, 
perhaps,  fourteen  years  of  age — I  had  found  in  the  attic  a 
sackful  of  love  letters  written  by  my  father  to  my  mother 
in  courtship  days.  They  were  largely  in  verse,  and  I  wish 
I  had  them  now.  They  were  signed  "Theophilus"  or 
"Tps,"  after  the  Victorian  fashion. 


108  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

I  did  not  tell  my  father  of  my  find,  neither  did  I  tell 
him  as  much  as  I  did  my  brother  of  my  unholy  ambition  to 
Write!  Yet  likely  enough  the  old  gentleman  was  to  blame, 
after  all,  although  it  evoked  a  snort  of  wrath  when,  ten 
years  later,  I  told  him  I  wanted  to  be  a  Journalist.  That 
meant  to  be  the  editor  of  a  country  weekly.  It  meant  that 
the  hard-found  college  money,  spent  on  me  for  the  law,  had 
been  wasted. 

And  yet  that  sackful  of  sheer  romance,  by  "Tps"! 

Well,  what  I  told  my  little  brother,  who  looked  at  me 
with  awed,  round  blue  eyes  as  we  perched  on  the  fence,  was 
that  I  Had  Written  Something. 

I  was  older  than  he.  There  was  no  editor  around.  I 
did  not  know  what  an  editor  was — then.  So  I  expounded 
to  him  the  art  of  literature  as  far  as  I  had  gone  at  that  time, 
in  the  original  manuscript  hid  in  the  bottom  drawer  of  our 
spare  room  bureau.  I  told  him  that  it  was  pretty  easy  to 
think  up  something,  not  so  hard  to  think  up  people.  "The 
hardest  thing  is  to  make  them  talk,"  I  said  to  him,  in  my 
first  confession  of  that  ambition  which  later  was  to  govern 
my  life. 

My  brother  made  no  reply.  He  was  awed,  scared  at  my 
superiority.  He  counseled  me  later  not  to  tell.  I  never  did. 
To  this  day  I  cannot  say  what  became  of  my  first  effort.  I 
hope  my  parents  did  not  find  it.  They  would  have  wept — 
as  they  did  when,  later,  I  forsook  the  law.  Poor  Tps! 
Poor  Arabella!  Dear,  dear  old  people,  who  tried  so  hard 
for  their  children. 

We  had  a  "spare  room" — also  a  "parlor,"  of  course.  On 
the  white,  ghastly,  marble-topped  parlor  table  we  had  a 
Family  Bible,  a  Family  Album,  a  conch  shell,  a  basket  of 
grass  with  alum  crystallized  on  the  stems;  and  a  year's  col 
lection  of  The  Century  Magazine.  These,  especially  the 
latter,  gave  our  family  an  assured  social  standing  quite  aside 
from  the  fact  that,  although  my  father  had  red  whiskers 
and  chewed  tobacco,  he  was  and  immemorially  had  been  a 
deacon  in  the  church. 


EMERSON    HOUGH  109 

Therefore,  ergo,  and  of  course,  it  was  to  The  Century 
Magazine  that  I  sent  my  first  story  to  get  so  far  along  as 
the  post  office.  .  .  .  The  reader  will  now  suppose  two 
years  to  have  elapsed. 

Oh,  very  well.  Of  course,  during  the  last  year  I  wrote 
in  many  impassioned  letters  as  all  beginners  do.  I  feared 
"a  prejudice  against  Western  writers" — not  a  bad  bet  at 
that  time.  But  something  in  this  innuendo  cut  the  soul  of 
that  haughty  editor.  In  less  than  another  nine  months  he 
actually  answered  my  letter — so  that  when  I  got  back  my 
first  story  it  was  not  with  a  cold  printed  slip  but  a  hot, 
exclamatory,  passionate  letter  of  protest  at  an  assumption 
which — and  so  forth,  et  cetera.  It  was  then  I  first  learned 
that  editors  can  do  no  wrong. 

I  presume  I  burned  that  manuscript.  I  don't  remember. 
I  know  I  went  about  for  days  like  a  hunted  animal,  afraid 
the  truth  about  my  maiden  effort  might  be  known.  I  forgot 
about  the  story,  but  believe  it  was  Western. 

I  think  the  first  thing  I  ever  actually  got  into  print — 
except  in  the  college  magazine,  of  which  I  was  the  editor, 
and  so  could  print  my  own  poetry  when  I  pleased — was  a 
Western  travel  story,  published  in  a  sportsman's  journal. 
For  it  I  got  a  railroad  pass  all  the  way  from  Chicago  to 
New  Mexico.  Excellent  journal!  It  got  me  there  and  it 
got  me  back,  a  year  or  so  later.  I  wish  I  could  get  a  pass 
for  a  story  now! 

Then  I  began  a  hectic  struggle  to  extract  money  from 
Sam  McClure  and  John  Phillips,  then  running  a  newspaper 
syndicate.  Lord!  What  stuff!  Still,  as  they  rarely  paid 
for  it,  maybe  it  was  all  right,  even  so. 

Then  what  might  be  called  my  real  literary  break,  I  pre 
sume,  in  The  Current  Magazine  of  Chicago,  long  defunct. 
I  believe  I  got  fifty  dollars  for  my  first  serial.  Those  were 
the  happy  days! 

You  see,  I  find  it  difficult  to  determine  just  which  I  ought 
to  call  my  really  and  truly  maiden  effort.  I  presume  that 
it  should  be  called  that  first  attempt  to  break  into  the  literary 


110  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

Bible  on  our  parlor  table.  If  so,  I  got  it  there  and  I  got  it 
back. 

But  we  were  some  swell  family  in  our  town,  taking  The 
Century  Magazine,  that  way,  and  proving  it  to  callers  by 
the  marble-topped  table!  I  swear  I've  almost  a  notion  to 
try  The  Century  again,  some  day!  The  editor  may  sup 
pose  forty  years  to  have  elapsed.  Or  would  he? 

Alas,  since  the  day  when  I  solemnly  explained  the  diffi 
culty  of  dialogue  to  my  young  brother  on  the  fence,  many 
a  fine  editor  has  passed  on.  Customs,  traditions,  practices 
have  changed  in  the  writing  world,  and  there  is  a  market 
where  once  was  none.  Everything  has  changed. 

.  .  .  Did  I  say  everything?  Not  at  all!  Methinks  the 
love  letters  of  Theophilus  to  Arabella  have  not  changed,  nor 
ever  lost  their  fragrance.  It  was  there  I  first  felt,  stealthily, 
ashamed,  guiltily — the  flavor  of  Romance. 

And  my  father  died  before  I  ever  got  a  successful  book 
into  covers.  Perhaps  "The  Mississippi  Bubble"  was  my 
maiden  effort?  It  lost  interest  with  me  because  then  I  was 
— well,  along  beyond  adolescence ;  and  by  that  time  both  my 
parents,  who  had  worked  to  educate  me  for  the  law,  were 
dead  and  could  not  know  ever  of  the  fence-top  dreams  of  a 
boy  who  had  been  too  ashamed  to  tell  them  of  his  maiden 
effort — and  too  proud  to  tell  of  all  that  lay  between  the 
earliest  and  a  later  day. 

La,  la,  la!  Well,  I  certainly  shall  try  The  Century  again 
some  day, — if  I  ever  can  save  up  the  stamps. 

RUPERT  HUGHES 

I  never  was  a  maiden  and  never  made  the  effort  to  be 
one,  but  I  assume  that  your  interest  is  in  the  technically 
literary  sense  of  the  term.     In  that  sense,  every  writing 
of  mine  is  a  maiden  effort,  for  I  have  not  reached  the  point 
of  the  octogenarian  genius  who  groaned  as  he  was  about 
to  die,  "And  I  was  just  learning  to  write!" 

The  first  published  literature  of  mine  was  a  struggle 
toward  verse.  It  was  issued  in  my  eighth  year,  A  former 


RUPERT    HUGHES  111 

school  teacher  recently  sent  to  the  Chicago  Tribune  a  ver 
sion  of  this  epoch-marking  lyric,  and  remembered  it  too 
well — remembered  it  far  better  than  it  was. 

For  the  sake  of  historical  accuracy,  I  ought  therefore  to 
give  a  correct  text;  but  only  a  little  of  it  recurs  to  me,  and 
the  world  will  have  to  wobble  along  on  that. 

It  was  entitled  "Be  Kind!"  and  was  therefore  of  the 
didactic  moral  school,  which  I  have  since  managed  to  escape 
and  avoid  with  fair  success. 

It  was  the  sort  of  thing  that  Martin  Tupper  might  have 
written  in  his  infancy  if  he  ever  really  could  have  written 
so  crassly  even  then. 

Certain  striking  irregularities  of  rhythm  foreshadowed  the 
recent  movement  toward  free  verse,  though  rhyme  was  still 
invoked.  I  recall  one  distinctly: 

Be  kind  to  the  little  butterfly 
That  flutters  harmlessly  by. 

The  scansion  of  these  two  lines  would  fascinate  a  prosodist. 

The  poem  included  among  other  advices  and  exhortations 
an  earnest  request  for  tenderness  toward  the  bee,  though 
this  smacked  somewhat  of  supererogation. 

The  last  couplet  is  indelible  upon  my  shamed  memory, 
violently  as  I  have  tried  to  forget  it. 

Be  kind,  be  kind !    To  everything, 
That  walks  on  foot  or  soars  on  wing. 

I  was  very  proud  of  this  then,  for  it  seemed  to  me  an 
absolute  example  of  the  difference  between  poetry  and  prose. 
As  I  explained  to  those  who  could  be  cornered  long  enough 
to  listen;  if  I  had  written  just  "walks"  or  "soars"  that 
would  have  been  plain  prose,  but  "walks  on  foot"  and  "soars 
on  wing"  were  manifestly  poetry. 

Apparently  I  had  a  notion  that  what  was  unnecessary,  re 
petitious,  foolish  and  tautological  turned  prose  into  poetry.  I 
have  often  since  felt  that  my  little  mind  had  stumbled  on  a 
certain  something  that  many  old  versifiers  practice  without 
realizing  it. 


112  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

I  sent  this  poem  to  a  boy  friend.  I  had  promised  this 
boy  that  when  I  became  president  of  the  United  States,  I 
would  appoint  him  vice-president.  He  is  still  waiting.  His 
uncle  published  a  paper  at  Glenwood,  Missouri.  He  printed 
the  poem  and  my  then  home-town  paper,  the  Gate  City  of 
Keokuk,  Iowa,  reproduced  it  under  the  heading,  "  A  Preco 
cious  Boy." 

That  was  a  bad  day  for  me  in  school,  for  the  other  boys 
treated  me  as  if  I  had  the  mumps  or  something  ludicrous. 
None  of  us  knew  just  what  "precocious"  meant,  but  we  had 
a  well-founded  suspicion  that  it  was  something  to  be  ashamed 
of.  The  only  thing  that  redeems  my  respect  for  myself  as 
a  child  is  that  when  I  read  those  early  things  over  now,  I 
realize  that  I  was  not  precocious  at  all.  I  was  simply  pre 
sumptuous  and  conceited.  At  that  time  I  knew  things,  had 
religion,  saved  souls,  and  gave  earnest  lectures  to  my  parents 
on  how  to  bring  up  their  children,  particularly  the  other 
children. 

Shortly  after  that,  I  fell  from  my  high  estate  and  have 
never  since  known  anything,  believed  much ;  or  hoped  to 
save  anybody. 

My  next  literary  endeavor  was  in  the  field  of  the  drama. 
It  was  relentlessly  moral  also. 

The  title  "Little  by  Little"  indicated  the  terrible  results 
of  letting  oneself  fall  gradually  into  error.  The  hero,  or 
rather  the  protagonist,  was  one  George  Thompson.  In 
a  prologue  he  was  shown  as  a  boy  stealing  from  another  boy 
a  pin  carelessly  laid  down.  The  first  act  took  place  many 
years  later,  when  George  was  as  mature  as  I  could  play  him 
with  a  burnt  cork  mustache.  He  was  now  a  full-fledged 
thief  and  in  the  course  of  his  nefarious  activities,  he  wounded 
one  man  and  killed  another  right  in  front  of  the  audience 
(coram  populo)  in  the  family  living  room,  and  killed  them 
at  that  with  a  clicking  old  revolver  that  had  not  even  a 
blank  cartridge  to  give  it  voice.  George  was  pursued  by 
a  posse  and  perished  in  his  sins,  a  fate  which  will  not  befall 
any  member  of  the  Author's  League  who  profits  by  the  les 
son  of  this  great  play,  and  abstains  his  hand  from  stealing 


RUPERT    HUGHES  113 

his  first  pin.  I  myself  am  fairly  safe  with  pins,  but  I  could 
never  be  trusted  with  a  rubber  band.  I  would  do  almost 
anything  to  get  a  rubber  band  except  buy  one. 

My  next  .  .  .  but  one  cannot  go  on  repeating 
maiden  efforts  indefinitely. 

EDWARD  HUNGERFORD 

The  Boy's  Friend  was  our  first  venture  into  the  realms 
of  literature.  We  then  were  ten.  In  size  eight  pages 
of  foolscap,  we  wrote  and  illustrated  it  in  lead  pencil 
and  then,  with  the  aid  of  carbon  paper,  multigraphed  it.  So 
it  was  that  we  met  the  slender  demands  of  beginning  circu 
lation — all  of  it  in  our  block,  save  three  copies  each  week  to 
the  south  or  benighted  side  of  Clinton  street.  Gradually,  we 
broadened — gradually  we  became  aware  of  the  existence  of 
still  another  sex — The  Boy's  Friend  became  merely  The 
Friend.  Also,  we  received  from  a  doting  parent  a  small 
printing  press — it  was  called  "The  Excelsior" — and  seven 
fonts  of  second-hand  type.  Circulation  increased.  Our  field 
of  influence  now  swept  from  the  Third  Ward  into  the 
Second  and  even  into  some  nearby  corners  of  the  Fourth. 

Gone  for  a  time  were  the  poignant  joys  of  authorship 
alone.  Now  was  expression  widened.  While  sticking  type 
was  a  new  pleasure  and,  for  a  little  while  at  least,  extremely 
worth  while.  An  ancient  printer — like  most  of  the  elder 
members  of  his  craft,  he  claimed  to  have  worked  on  the 
New  York  Tribune  and  to  have  had  a  personal  acquaintance 
with  Horace  Greeley — taught  us  our  p's  and  q's.  We 
reeked  of  benzine  and  wallowed  in  ink.  And  today  we 
cannot  pass  an  old-fashioned  printshop  without  a  vast  yearn 
ing  to  go  in  and  stand  at  the  cases  and  put  the  clicking 
types  into  the  stick  once  again.  It  still  seems  to  be  the 
most  fascinating  profession  in  the  world.  And,  to  our  own 
way  of  thinking,  one  of  the  most  valuable  that  any  young 
man  may  acquire. 

The  Watertonian  was  our  third  venture.  It  was  an 
ambitious  affair;  and  limned  with  ideals  as  well.  Upon  its 


114  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

masthead  it  bore  the  following  verse,  not  original,  but  taken 
from  an  English  newspaper  published  in  Panama  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  last  century: 

For  the  cause  that  lacks  assistance, 
For  the  wrong  that  needs  resistance, 
For  the  future  in  the  distance 
And  the  good  that  I  can  do. 

Here  was  an  ambitious  affair  for  a  small  boy;  far  too  large 
for  the  modest-sized  printing-press  that  we  owned  and  so 
printed  in  the  establishment  of  a  kind-hearted  relative.  It 
had  a  short  life,  but  a  vigorous  one.  Its  realm  of  influ 
ence  was  limited  neither  to  Watertown  nor  Jefferson  County 
nor  the  whole  State  of  New  York.  We  had  exchanges,  if 
you  please,  in  England,  in  India  and  in  far-off  Australia. 

Those  were  the  days — a  full  quarter  of  a  century  ago — 
when  amateur  journalism  flourished — all  over  the  English- 
speaking  world ;  while  to  write  and  print  a  magazine  that 
would  excite  commendation  in  London  or  Calcutta  or  in 
Brisbane  was  an  achievement  worthy  of  all  the  effort. 

But  the  day  came  when  The  Watertonian,  like  many  and 
many  another  publication,  printed  its  valedictory.  "Circum 
stances  over  which  we  have  no  control,"  wrote  the  editor 
in  double-leaded  eight-point  type,  "compel  us  to  suspend  the 
publication  of  our  magazine."  He  spake  the  truth.  He 
was  going  away — to  boarding-school. 

No  more  would  Homer  Rice's  Arctic  Soda  Fountain  at 
the  upper  end  of  the  Public  Square  beckon  to  him  as  it  has 
been  beckoning  to  the  Watertown  boys  for  more  than  half 
a  century  now.  Jefferson  Hose  Company  Number  Three 
and  John  Hancock  Hook  and  Ladder  Number  One  would 
have  to  roll  their  ways  to  all  the  fires  sounded  by  the 
siren  whistle  on  Knowlton  Brothers'  paper  mill  without  his 
aid;  no  longer  would  he  stand  at  the  junction,  watching 
Jeff  Wells'  Number  Forty-four — which,  as  all  the  North 
country  knows,  hauled  the  Cape  Vincent  Local  for  more 
than  forty-five  years  before  finally  going  to  the  scrap-heap — 


EDWARD    HUNGERFORD  115 

and  wondering  if  God,  in  His  infinite  goodness,  would  ever 
send  him  a  passenger  run.  All  these  things  were  to  cease. 
A  stern  New  England  seminary  was  going  to  take  a  wrestle 
at  a  scholastic  bramble  bush  in  the  making. 

Of  the  pruning  of  that  bramble  bush  we  shall  say  but 
little  now.  The  founder  of  The  Boy's  Friend  became  the 
least  distinguished  alumnus  of  a  much  distinguished  college 
in  Central  New  York.  He  tinkered  for  a  time — not  suc 
cessfully — with  architecture. 

But  what  was  college,  what  were  the  five  classic  orders 
of  the  ancient  builders,  compared  with  working  on  a  real 
newspaper,  in  a  real  city  like  Rochester,  with  Rob  Beach, 
the  kindest  city  editor  that  ever  sat  at  a  copy  desk — and 
the  most  patient — to  help  work  out  the  hard  journalistic 
knots  at  the  very  beginning  of  serious  things?  And  what  in 
turn  was  even  the  thorough  training  of  the  Rochester  Herald 
to  be  compared  with  that  of  the  New  York  Sun,  with  the 
kindness  and  sympathy  of  Kellogg  and  Mallon  and  Tommy 
Dieuade  and  Boss  Clark,  only  second  to  that  of  Rob  Beach 
himself  ? 

These  were  still  the  formative  years.  From  them  sprang 
all  the  desire  of  mind  creation. 

Stories,  articles,  even  verse — how  they  flowed  from  the 
typewriter  those  days,  and  how  uniformly  and  consistently 
they  flowed  back  again  like  the  very  movement  of  the  tides. 
.  .  .  Until  one  fine  day  the  editor  of  a  highbrow  maga 
zine,  wearied  perhaps  with  the  flood,  reached  down  and 
caught  one  of  the  manuscripts  and  printed  it.  Printed 
another.  And  another.  And  many  others.  Other  editors 
followed. 

The  trick  was  turned.  Not  again  could  there  be  a  maiden 
effort.  The  founder  of  The  Boy's  Friend  was  a  full-fledged 
author  now — whatever  that  may  mean.  He  was  aboard 
the  wheel  of  full  endeavor.  The  wheel  would  grind  on, 
whether  with  him  or  without  him.  And  whether  or  not  he 
went  on  with  it  would  depend  entirely  upon  his  own  abili 
ties — and  his  own  energies. 


116  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

FANNIE  HURST 


A 


t  the  age  of  ten  I  burst  into  verse : 

Oh  woman  is  a  funny  thing, 
She  never  will  have  wings. 
Like  man  her  sole  ambition  is, 
to  simply,  simply  rise. 


At  fifteen,  The  Saturday  Evening  Post  had  the  honor  to 
reject  an  exceedingly  blank-verse  "Masque  to  Thessaly." 

At  sixteen  I  attempted  to  finish  (and  improve  upon) 
Coleridge's  "Christabel." 

At  seventeen,  I  completed  the  cycle  eleven  times  by 
sending  to  eleven  publications  a  short  story  entitled,  "Upon 
the  Irony  of  Fate." 

It  was  finally  published.  Not  by  one  of  the  eleven  but  by 
my  college  paper — after  I  had  become  one  of  the  editors. 

I  suppose  then  I  should  call  this  my  maiden  effort. 

I  offer  excerpts  of  it  to  the  Great  Chams  of  the  Pen  as 
supreme  examples  of  Anfractuosity,  Banality,  Compact  In 
comprehensibility,  Descipiency,  Effusiveness,  Flaccidity,  Gar 
rulity,  Hyperbolism,  Imbecility,  Juvenescence,  and  so  on  to 
Omega ! 

Mine  is  a  tale  of  the  night;  that  weird,  mystic  period 
only  to  be  comprehended  in  the  category  of  illusion. 
When  God's  great  and  panting  universe  sinks  languidly 
into  its  purple  shroud  and  the  world  relaxes  .  .  . 
When  the  play-tired  child  droops  his  bright  head  and 
wanders  off  to  dreams,  the  solitary  watcher  in  the  tower 
presses  his  haggard  face  closer  to  the  pane  and  keeps 
his  lonely  vigil  out  across  the  sea,  when  the  fair  young 
girl,  home  from  her  first  ball,  laughs  softly  over  the  joys 
of  it  all  and  buries  her  flushed  face  in  her  flowers,  and 
the  wide-eyed  prisoner,  battling  with  the  torments  of 
his  cell  turns  his  face  to  the  wall  and  clutches  the  steely 
bars.  The  midnight  tolls,  the  child  dreams  on,  the 


FANNIE    HURST  117 

white  face  is  still  against  the  pane,  the  girl  is  laughing 
yet,  but  this  time  in  her  dreams,  the  prison  laughs  too 
—THE  LAUGH  OF  THE  MANIAC  .  .  . 
for  again,  mine  is  a  tale  of  the  night ! 

From  the  river  banks  a  frog  talked  lustily  to  him 
self,  and  above  the  girl's  head,  Kahgahgee,  the  King  of 
Ravens,  laughed  Hideously,  for  it  was  Midnight — the 
Death  Hour,  and  he  anticipated  the  morrow.  .  .  . 

Suddenly  a  love  song  broke  the  stillness,  it  was  the 
homeward  bound  North  Wind,  singing  the  Mama 
Gucha,  dreaming  of  his  Morning  Star.  And  the  Night 
Sun,  the  round  and  silly  moon,  seeing  his  reflection  on 
the  polished  surface  of  the  water,  looked  down  at  it 
and — leered.  .  .  . 

She  paused  for  a  moment  and  then  looking  up  at  the 
waiting  star  she  whispered,  "I  wish — oh  I  wish  that 
I  were  the  Indian  maiden,  Morning  Star,  that  I  might 
sit  before  my  father's  wigwam  weaving  baskets  in  the 
sun,  that  I  were  dark  and  wild,  for  she  is  happy — free 
— and  this — this  life  is  empty — empty — empty!"  And 
again  the  moon  leered. 

This  gallimaufry  was  followed  by  a  somewhat  violent 
reaction.  Old  Boccaccio  had  nothing  on  me.  Under  my 
auspices  the  ladies  of  Shakespeare  house-partied  at  the  home 
of  Juliet,  the  contralto  Lady  Macbeth  and  stately  Portia 
choosing  for  some  reason  known  only  to  myself  to  week-end 
with  the  fourteen  year  old  Miss  Capulet.  This  ambitious, 
amazingly  unsophisticated  and  unexpurgated  Decameron 
was  offered  around  as  a  series,  and  around  and  around  and 
around. 

My  first  play,  also  written  at  seventeen  was  called  "The 
Shadow" — and  other  things. 

I  would  rebound  to  verse.  A  dyspeptic  couplet  culled 
from  an  old  scrap-book  asks  of  Deity: 

"Oh  God,  what  is  this  pain  around  my  heart, 
Is  it  that  Love  has  cast  his  dart?" 


118  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

Again : 

"If  I  should  die  tonight,  dear  love, 
My  kiss  will  coin  a  new  star  above." 

In  college  under  the  subtle  pseudonym,  Fan  Niehurst,  I 
sent  four  successive  bits  of  fiction  to  a  local  paper  of  rather 
national  repute,  Reedy' $  Mirror.  A  love  idyl  of  a  Roman 
maiden  and  a  gladiator  large  of  bicep.  An  Elizabethan 
romance  smacking  of  the  Paul  and  Virginia  school.  "The 
Confessions  of  a  Nubian  Girl,"  and  last,  the  ham-and-eggs 
courtship  of  a  department  store  clerk  named  Eddie  Snuggs. 

I  sold  the  last  for  five  dollars.     I  had  broken  into  fiction. 

With  that  five  dollars  I  purchased  a  morocco-bound  note 
book  largely  and  giltly  inscribed,  "Fannie  Hurst — Author." 

It  was  the  dire  beginning  of  who  knows  what  dire  end ! 

WALLACE  IRWIN 

In  my  case  it  was  a  tragedietta  in  two  small  acts. 
The  scene  is  laid  in  a  very  dirty  room  in  Encina  Hall, 
a  dormitory  for  males  at  Leland  Stanford  University. 
The  characters  are  two :    Myself  and  Roommate.    Two  pale 
students  are  bending  over  a  table  in  a  desperate  effort  to 
"cram"  a  semester  of  Horace  into  one  evening  of  intensive 
study,  as  is  customary  on  the  evening  before  an  examination. 

ACT  I 

Roommate:  (glancing  up)  Say,  Mick,  that  sonnet  of 
yours  "At  the  Stevenson  Fountain"  is  a  bully  job.  How  did 
you  come  to  think  of  it? 

Myself:  (dreamily)  I  was  in  San  Francisco  during 
Easter  vacation.  I  was  broke,  as  usual.  I  saw  Bruce 
Porter's  wonderful  monument  to  Robert  Louis  in  Ports 
mouth  Square  and  the  idea  came  to  me — the  comfort  Steven 
son's  Christmas  Sermon  must  bring  to  men  without  home, 
without  money — 

Roommate:  Think  of  the  boost  Ambrose  Bierce  gave 
that  sonnet !  Pretty  soft  for  a  man  in  his  sophomore  year — 


WALLACE    IRWIN  119 

look  here,  Mick!  (I  look  there.)  You're  a  self-supporting 
student  and  there's  no  reason  in  the  world  why  you  should 
have  to  go  round  mowing  faculty  lawns  for  a  living. 

Myself:     None  whatever. 

Roommate:  Why,  old  man,  all  you  have  to  do  is  to  sit 
down  and  dash  off  poems  like  that,  send  'em  to  magazines 
and  cash  the  checks. 

Myself:     Would  I  sell  my  soul? 

Roommate:  Editors  don't  want  soul.  They  want  copy. 
Why,  man  alive,  there's  thousands  to  be  made  in  literature, 
if  you  keep  busy.  There  was  a  man  right  here  in  Stanford 
who  sold  a  short  story  to  The  Black  Cat.  That  was  back  in 
'95.  He  got  fifty  dollars,  I  think — maybe  it  was  five  hun 
dred. 

Myself:     I've  heard  that  myth.    But  then,  short  stories — 

Roommate:  They're  only  prose.  Poetry's  a  lot  more 
difficult,  and  this  sonnet  of  yours  has  aroused  a  great  deal 
of  interest  already.  The  standard  rate  for  sonnets,  I  think, 
is  twenty-five  dollars. 

Myself:  (morbidly)  Twenty-five  dollars!  (I  reach 
down  into  my  drawer  and  bring  out  a  scrap  of  paper  upon 
which  a  very  good  sonnet  has  been  very  badly  typewritten 
in  purple  ink.  I  sigh.)  Where  shall  I  send  it?^ 

Roommate:  It's  on  a  San  Francisco  subject.  The  East 
ern  magazines  wouldn't  understand  it,  probably. 

Myself:  There's  The  Overland  Monthly.  It  was 
founded  by  Bret  Harte — 

Roommate:  That's  the  idea!  Once  get  a  start  on  that 
publication  and  they'll  make  you  a  regular  contributor. 
That'll  put  you  on  easy  street  for  your  junior  and  senior 
years. 

Myself:  (sighing  again)  Lend  me  an  envelope.  (He 
lends  me  an  envelope.)  Got  the  makin's?  (He  passes  me 
cigarette  papers  and  a  limp  tobacco  sack.) 

Roommate:  Better  drop  the  editor  a  line  saying  that  you 
can  dash  off  stuff  like  this  any  old  time. 

Myself:  Dry  up!  (I  sign  the  sonnet  carefully  "Wal 
lace  A.  Irwin,"  write  my  address  upon  an  upper  corner  with 


120  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

the  words  "respectfully  submitted"  and  fold  it  into  the  boi- 
rowed  envelope.) 

Roommate:     You  just  listen  to  your  uncle. 

Myself:      (entranced)     Twenty-five  dollars! 
(Slow  Fade-out.) 

ACT  II 

Same  scene  as  before.  Six  weeks  have  elapsed.  It  is  mid- 
afternoon  and  my  Roommate  and  I  sit  by  an  open  window 
gazing  moodily  down  the  walk  where  many  students  are 
strolling  towards  football  practice. 

Myself:     Got  the  makin's? 

Roommate:  Sure.  (He  brings  out  the  limp  sack  and 
papers.) 

Myself:     Is  it  seven  dollars  or  nine  that  I  owe  you? 

Roommate:  (magnanimously)  How  do  I  know?  It's 
nine,  I  think. 

Myself :  It's  all  right  about  that  tennis  racket  you  bor 
rowed  and  my  plaid  cap. 

Roommate:     Why  don't  you  go  to  work? 

Myself:     You  know  darned  well  I've  sprained  my  ankle. 

Roommate:     If  you'd  stop  robbing  hen-roosts — 

Myself:  Dry  up!  I've  been  cutting  classes  for  a  week 
because  I'm  shy  on  text  books.  They  soak  you  two  and  a 
half  now  for  "Private  Life  of  the  Romans"  and  those  mid- 
Saxon  glossaries — 

Roommate:     Borrow  'em. 

Myself:  I'm  a  marked  man.  Not  only  that,  I'm  nine 
days  behind  with  my  room-rent.  Last  night  Adder-Claws 
threatened  to  turn  me  out  into  the  night  if  I  don't  pungle 
by  Thursday.  Say,  why  in  the  world  did  you  ever  suggest 
my  earning  a  living  by  literature? 

Roommate:  Cheer  up!  Yesterday  Bill  Neidig  sold  a 
story  to  The  Black  Cat.  Saw  the  check— 

Myself:     (hungrily)     How  much? 

Roommate:     Seventy-five  dollars. 

Myself:     Can  it  be  possible? 


WALLACE    IRWIN  121 

Roommate:  I'm  a  practical  man,  Mick.  All  you  poets 
need  a  business  manager.  My  father's  in  the  potato  busi 
ness.  Just  follow  me  and  I'll  see  you  through  this  game. 

Myself:  It  was  six  weeks  ago  I  sent  away  my  sonnet. 
Gosh !  I  forgot  to  put  a  stamp  on  it — 

Roommate:  I  knew  you  would  bungle  it  some  way.  But 
you  can't  expect  a  dignified  magazine  like  The  Overland 
Monthly  to  give  you  an  answer  right  away.  Especially  on 
poetry.  That  requires  special  consideration — (three  fateful 
knocks  are  heard  upon  the  door). 

Myself:  (faintly)  Come  in!  (Enter  a  Japanese,  bear 
ing  letters.) 

Japanese:  For  you,  prease!  (I  spring  upon  the  letter, 
but  my  Roommate,  in  his  eagerness,  has  snatched  it  from 
my  trembling  hands.) 

Roommate:   My  God!  It's  from  The  Overland  Monthly! 

Myself:     (in  a  hoarse  whisper)    Can  it  be  possible? 

Roommate:  (after  tearing  open  the  envelope,  reads) 
"My  dear  Mr.  Irwin:  We  are  greatly  pleased  to  accept  for 
publication  your  charmingly  perfect  sonnet  'At  the  Steven 
son  Fountain'  " — 

Myself:  Wait  a  minute!  (I  gulp  a  glass  of  water  and 
gaze  at  my  Roommate  with  a  wild  surmise.)  What  else 
does  he  say? 

Roommate:  (reading)  "You  have  the  gift  of  poesy 
which  is  in  itself  like  the  possession  of  pure  gold — " 

Myself:     Does  he  mention  the  price? 

Roommate:  I'm  coming  to  that.  (Reads)  "And, 
although  we  feel  that  the  discussion  of  financial  reward  may 
be  distasteful  to  the  artist  of  true  feeling — "  (Dramatic 
pause.) 

Myself:     (choking)    Go  on! 

Roommate:  (reading).  "We  know  that  all  literary 
achievement  deserves  compensation.  Therefore,  we  take 
pleasure  in  putting  you  down  for  a  year's  subscription  to  The 
Overland  Monthly" 

Myself:     (in  a  clear,  ringing  tone)    Anything  more? 


122  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

Roommate:  (reading)  "Yours  very  faithfully — The 
Editors." 

Myself:     (rising  stiffly)  My  ankle  feels  a  little  better;  I 
think  I'll  go  out  and  mow  that  lawn. 
(Curtain.) 

BURGES  JOHNSON 

There  are  several  worthy  persons  now  living  who  may 
recall  their  joint  editorship  of  sundry  periodicals  that 
appeared  intermittently  in  New  London,  Connecti 
cut,  years  ago.  Neither  the  Congressional  Library  nor  the 
British  Museum  preserves  any  copy,  either  of  The  Earth  or 
of  The  Eclipse.  As  I  remember,  they  were  not  only  hand 
written  but  hand-illustrated  and  illuminated.  Editors  and 
authors  were  identical,  thereby  doing  away  with  all  grounds 
for  disagreement  which,  in  these  benighted  times,  occur 
occasionally  in  the  literary  shop.  Our  joint  labors  were  con 
ducted  in  such  perfect  harmony  in  those  days  that  even  if  I 
could  recall  the  contents  of  those  folio  editions,  I  could  never 
claim  any  maiden  effort  therein  as  all  my  own. 

I  think  that  my  first  published  article  was  a  letter  written 
to  a  magazine  for  young  folks.  In  order  to  insure  acceptance 
I  filled  it  with  blatant  flattery.  It  did  not  come  back,  so 
I  watched  for  each  issue  of  that  periodical  with  an  excite 
ment  closely  akin  to  my  feelings  on  Christmas  eve  when  my 
eye  was  on  the  chimney  opening. 

At  last  the  letter  appeared  in  print.  I  devoured  it.  But 
it  happened  that  I  had  confided  to  the  editor  the  fact  that 
a  club  of  young  people  subscribed  jointly  for  his  paper.  He 
printed  my  letter,  but  with  a  foul  intent.  He  added  to  it 
an  editorial  comment,  scolding  me  roundly.  "Every  young 
person  in  my  club,"  he  said,  "should  subscribe  separately. 
Imagine,"  he  said,  "how  it  would  be  if  clubs  of  children 
were  formed  in  order  to  receive  one  Christmas  present  to 
be  shared  among  them  all!"  The  words  of  that  scolding 
are  still  graven  upon  my  brain. 


BURGES   JOHNSON  123 

Thus  it  was  with  a  real  distrust  of  editors  that  I  ap 
proached  a  second  experience. 

While  I  was  a  college  student  I  sent  some  verses  to  Life. 
They  were  returned  with  a  pleasantly  worded  printed  slip 
from  the  editor.  I  sent  some  more.  They  were  returned- 
with  similar  comment,  the  wording  if  I  remember  rightly 
being  identically  the  same.  I  did  it  again  and  yet  again, 
always  with  the  same  result. 

Then  at  last  came  acceptance  with  a  handwritten  note 
asking  for  more.  But  there  was  an  old  flaw  in  my  respect 
for  editors.  I  proceeded  to  hunt  up  all  those  rejected  manu 
scripts  and  I  sent  them  in  response  to  the  request.  They 
were  all  accepted. 

It  was  then  that  a  great  truth  dawned  upon  me.  Editors 
were  humanly  fallible.  Any  one  could  be  one.  So,  in  time, 
I  myself  became  an  editor. 

ELIZABETH  JORDAN 

The  first  literary  drippings  came  from  my  gifted  pen 
when  I  was  thirteen  years  old ;  and  I  need  hardly  add 
that  they  took  the  form  of  a  love  story.  I  gave  the 
effusion  the  title  "Caleb  Green's  Affinity,"  and  optimistically 
sent  it  to  The  Evening  Wisconsin,  the  leading  newspaper  in 
Milwaukee,  which  was  my  home  city. 

The  tale,  when  finished,  had  amazed  me  by  its  beauty  and 
charm  of  style. 

Nevertheless,  some  instinct  kept  me  from  confiding  to  any 
one  the  fact  that  I  had  written  it.  I  had  heard  that  stories 
sent  to  newspapers  and  magazines  were  sometimes  returned. 
It  was  unthinkable  that  this  one  would  be  returned — but  I 
played  safe. 

I  was  pleased  but  not  greatly  surprised  when  I  received  a 
letter  from  Mrs.  William  E.  Cramer,  then  editor  of  The 
Wisconsin's  fiction  department,  accepting  the  story;  but  I 
was  enchanted  by  the  fact  that  she  addressed  me  as  "Dear 
Madam,"  which  proved  that  she  thought  I  was  grown  up. 
The  maturity  of  my  style  and  the  excellence  of  my  romance 


124  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

had  obviously  deceived  her.  That  was  so  gratifying  that  I 
received  almost  with  composure  a  whole  dollar  she  subse 
quently  sent  me  in  payment  for  the  story. 

The  temptation  to  tell  my  family  of  this  triumph  was 
great.  I  also  desired  to  tell  my  teachers  and  my  classmates 
and  the  boy  who  delivered  newspapers  at  the  house  and 
strangers  on  the  street.  I  desired  to  stop  those  strangers  and 
tell  them  that  sometime  they  would  have  an  opportunity  to 
read  a  story  I  had  written.  I  thought  they  ought  to  know 
this.  But,  even  stronger  than  those  desires  was  the  fascina 
tion  of  a  Plan  I  had  evolved.  The  Plan  was  this : 

I  would  tell  no  one  about  the  story  until  it  was  published. 
Then,  quite  casually,  I  would  read  it  aloud  to  the  members 
of  my  family  and  listen  to  their  exclamations  of  interest 
while  they  heard  it  and  watch  them  fall  dead,  so  to  speak, 
when  at  the  end  the  author's  name  was  revealed. 

To  carry  out  this  Plan,  I  had  to  waylay  the  newsboy 
every  afternoon  until  the  story  appeared,  lest  the  newspaper 
fall  into  other  hands  and  the  great  secret  leak  out.  I  way 
laid  him  until  he  was  convinced  that  I  was  the  victim  of 
a  hopeless  attachment  for  him.  He  bragged  of  it  and  had 
to  be  thrashed  by  the  little  boy  to  whom  I  was  attached. 

The  story  finally  appeared  in  print,  about  a  month  after 
its  acceptance.  I  hid  The  Evening  Wisconsin  until  the 
members  of  the  family  had  assembled  in  the  living  room 
after  dinner.  It  was  an  impressive  circle,  made  up  of  my 
father,  mother,  maternal  grandmother,  small  sister,  and  two 
frivolous  young  aunts  who  were  visiting  us. 

When  I  announced  that  I  was  about  to  read  a  story  aloud 
they  were  all  greatly  depressed,  and  showed  it.  They  be 
came  more  depressed  as  the  reading  went  on.  They  thought 
the  story  was  slush,  and  said  so.  They  frequently  inter 
rupted  to  ask  anxiously  why  I  insisted  on  finishing  it.  I  did 
insist.  I  read  it  to  the  bitter  end.  Then  I  invited  criticism 
— and  got  it ! 


ELIZABETH    JORDAN  125 

My  mother  expressed  surprise  that  newspapers  wasted 
their  space  on  anything  so  trivial.  My  father  admitted  that 
he  had  ceased  to  listen  after  the  first  half  dozen  paragraphs. 
My  gay  young  aunts  improvised  an  "act"  burlesquing  the 
principal  scene. 

My  small  sister  said,  suddenly  and  abruptly:  "I  like  it!" 
But  as  she  had  slept  peacefully  throughout  the  reading,  the 
tribute  was  not  as  warming  as  it  might  have  been. 

At  last,  my  grandmother  asked,  with  gentle  surprise, 
"What  is  there  about  it  that  interests  you,  dear?" 

"I  wrote  it,"  I  confessed,  and  lifted  up  my  voice  and 
wept. 

It  is  gratifying  to  pause  here  and  recall  the  scene  that 
followed  this  simple  announcement — the  amazement,  the  in 
credulity,  the  subsequent  humility,  the  excitement.  Every 
one  wanted  to  hold  the  newspaper  and  read  again  and  again 
the  title  and  the  name  of  the  author,  set  forth  in  print  for 
the  first  time.  Remorseful  efforts  were  made  to  recall  or 
palliate  the  previous  harsh  criticisms. 

But  my  heart  was  broken  and  I  didn't  care  who  knew  it. 
Also,  my  bubble  had  burst  and  my  career  was  ruined.  I  did 
not  grow  calm  until  my  father  silenced  the  others  and 
tenderly  explained  that  while  the  story  would  be  very  slight 
as  the  production  of  an  established  author  it  was  highly 
promising  as  the  first  effort  of  a  little  girl  of  thirteen.  He 
was  convinced,  he  solemnly  assured  me,  that  few  little  girls 
of  thirteen  could  write  better  stories.  I  wiped  my  eyes. 

The  memory  of  the  anguish  I  had  experienced  lingered 
for  a  quarter  of  a  century.  Then  I  worked  it  into  a  bit  of 
fiction  called  "Olive's  First  Story,"  which  was  published 
in  Harpers'  Magazine  and  kindly  praised  by  William  Dean 
Howells. 

This  seemed  a  satisfactory  climax  to  the  episode,  and  I 
let  it  go  at  that! 


126  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

KATE  JORDAN 

The  burning  desire  to  express  myself  in  words  began 
early  in  me — at  seven  years,  to  be  exact.  At  that  age 
I  started  the  story  of  a  family  of  settlers  in  New 
England  who  suffered  agonies  from  dread  of  prowling  and 
attacking  Redskins.  This  was  written  in  a  small  copy-book 
with  a  leaky  pen,  divided  into  chapters  of  about  two  hun 
dred  words  each,  and  called  "The  Cabin  All  Alone."  When 
it  was  less  than  half  done  I  had  perforce  to  lay  it  aside  as, 
ink-spotted  and  breathless  from  my  brain  energies,  I  was 
taken  to  the  country  for  the  summer. 

In  the  Autumn  I  felt  very  important  as  I  settled  myself 
at  the  liliputian  desk  that  had  been  given  me  as  a  Christmas 
present  and  prepared  to  go  on  with  the  great  Work.  (This 
desk,  by  the  way,  had  been  thought  necessary  by  the  family 
in  order  to  confine  my  mania  for  writing  on  walls,  piano 
keys,  fly  leaves  of  books,  etc.,  to  a  place  where  it  would 
do  the  least  harm.) 

I  was  a  dismayed  author  when,  reading  back  to  see  just 
how  I  would  conclude  "The  Cabin  All  Alone,"  I  found  that, 
in  the  diminutive  chapters  already  done,  every  character — 
Harold,  Lillian,  father,  mother,  the  old  grandfather,  and 
even  the  faithful  mastiff,  Wiggle  (unfittingly  named  after 
my  own  bulldog)  were  already  dead — all  slaughtered  in 
various  and  dreadful  ways  by  the  prowling  Redskins.  Dis 
gusted  at  my  mistake  in  construction,  I  left  the  tale  so — 
ended  at  its  beginning. 

The  effort  which  was  a  maiden  one  in  lassoing  payment 
and  publication  had  been  fashioned  after  the  weaving  of 
many  unsuccessful  tales,  and  at  the  "age  of  twelve.  This  is 
how  it  happened! 

I  lived,  next-to-the-youngest  of  a  large  family,  in  a  red 
brick  house  in  one  of  the  old  streets  of  Greenwich  Village. 
For  more  than  a  year  a  young  professor  who  was  an  ad 
mirer  of  a  grown-up  sister  had  been  secretly  helping  me  in 
my  author's  strivings — which  embraced  a  cold  attic  and 
stolen  candles  and  unremitting  labor  at  dead  of  night  while 


KATE   JORDAN  127 

those  of  the  family  not  burning  with  temperament  were 
deep  in  that  dull,  "sleek-headed"  sleep  satirically  commended 
by  Caesar.  This  young  professor  would  take  away,  have 
copied  and  post  for  me  all  the  manuscripts  I  secretly  slipped 
to  him,  and  all  as  passionately  blotted  as  they  were  labori 
ously  written. 

At  least  ten  manuscripts  were  out  when  The  Day  arrived. 

It  was  a  wet  Saturday  morning.  No  school.  I  was 
tucked  away  in  a  sheltered  corner  of  an  upper  hall  supposed 
to  be  studying  my  lessons  when  I  was  really  at  work  on 
another  possibly  immortal  creation. 

Suddenly  there  was  a  loud  ringing  of  the  basement  bell; 
then  the  piercing  summons  of  a  postman's  whistle;  then 
more  ringing,  while  the  dog,  Wiggle,  barked  as  I  had  never 
heard  even  him  bark  before.  This  din  brought  me,  petu 
lantly  annoyed,  from  the  creator's  dream-world.  But  not 
until  I  heard  my  name  called  through  the  house  by  several 
people  at  once  and  in  an  excited  way  did  I  feel  hopeful  of 
its  meaning  and  stagger  from  my  corner. 

I  recall  that  I  stood  with  hand  pressed  to  heart — the  man 
ner  called  for  by  the  situation — as  with  head  stuck  forward 
and  short  locks  half-veiling  my  face,  I  slid  in  the  snake-like 
twist  of  disorganizing  nervousness  down  the  banisters  and 
into  the  front  basement  room  where  the  most  important 
drama  of  my  life  up  to  that  time  was  set. 

A  dripping,  smiling  postman,  holding  up  a  letter  that 
had  a  red  delivery  card  strapped  to  it — a  registered  letter, 
often  seen  before,  but  never  one  for  me.  My  mother  puzzled ; 
my  older  sister,  ditto ;  my  younger  sister  dancing  on  her  toes ; 
the  red  and  round-faced  cook  peeping  in,  delighted  in  her 
Hibernian  way  that  something  upsetting,  however  small,  was 
happening  as  a  tonic  for  her  day;  my  dog,  Wiggle,  barking 
at  each  in  turn,  with  his  most  frenzied  objections  boomed 
at  the  postman.  There  was  the  following  dialogue: 

Postman:  I  have  a  registered  letter  here  for  Miss  Floribel 
Darcy  in  care  of  Miss  Kitty  Jordan.  Are  you  Miss  Jordan. 

/:     Ye-es.     (A  breath.) 

Postman:     Can  you  sign  for  Miss  Darcy? 


128  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

/:     Ye-es. 

Mother:     How  can  you?    Who  is  she? 

/:     Me — I  mean — I.     That's  my — my  nom  de  plume. 

Mother:  (resigned)  (Oh,  indeed?  I  thought  I  saw 
your  nom  de  plume  on  something  recently  as  Pearl  de  Vere. 

/:     This — this  is — a  new  one. 

Mother:     What  next! 

And  the  final — the  glorious  moment!  After  I  had  signed 
the  wet  card  with  the  man's  indelible  pencil  and  he  had 
smilingly  departed,  I  opened  the  much-stamped  envelope 
before  a  rapt  audience  and  found  there  three  crisply  new 
one  dollar  bills  with  the  following  receipt,  which  I  read 
aloud  in  an  agitated  voice: 

"Received  from  The Weekly,  for  story  'At 

Ocean's  Mercy'  by  Floribel  Darcy,  three  dollars.     Re 
ceived  payment.     Please  sign  on  line." 

Cook:  Oh,  she's  grand!  Miss  Kitty's  grand!  Three 
dollars  from  a  paper — an  look  at  her! 

Mother:  "At  Ocean's  Mercy."  Gracious!  What  could 
you  say  on  such  a  subject? 

/:  (bolder  now  and  glowing)  Oh,  there's  a  shipwreck 
— and  the  heroine  almost  dies  of  thirst — and  the  hero  swims 
with  her  to  a  desert  island — 

Mother:  This  just  shows  how  this  fiction  stuff  is  writ 
ten.  You  can't  possibly  remember  crossing  the  ocean  from 
Dublin,  as  you  weren't  there,  and  your  sea  experiences  since 
have  been  one  boat  ride  to  Long  Branch  and  one  to  Coney 
Island! 

/:  (broodingly)  What  does  that  matter?  I — imagined 
it! 

I  retreated  to  solitude,  to  kiss  each  one  of  the  dollar  bills 
many  times.  I  remember  they  went  to  help  the  purchase 
of  a  little  squirrel  turban  for  which  my  soul  had  longed. 
That  payment  and  publication  acted  on  me  as  does  the  first 
taste  of  blood  on  a  tiger.  After  that,  I  felt  that  nothing 
could  stop  me!  And,  though  I  had  a  long  and  heart- wear 
ing  apprenticeship — nothing  did. 


REGINALD    WRIGHT    KAUFFMAN        129 
REGINALD  WRIGHT  KAUFFMAN 

During  several  years  my  maiden  efforts  adorned  the 
walls  of  an  encouraging  aunt's  and  uncle's  sitting- 
room,  for  until  the  age  of  five  or  six  I  was  an  artist  in 
pastels,  making  illustrations  for  the  books  that  they  read 
aloud.  As  I  recall  these  works  of  the  illustrator's  art — 
and  particularly  one,  suggested  by  a  scene  in  the  Chronicle 
of  the  Cid  and  entitled  "Rodrigo  Steps  Forth" — I  was  con 
siderably  under  pre-Raphaelite  influences  and,  because  I 
would  demonstrate  in  my  own  person  that  the  depicted 
actions  were  not  impossible,  I  used  to  be  accused  of  posing 
for  my  drawings  after  they  were  made. 

From  this  the  step  was  natural  to  devising  stories  for 
myself  and  illustrating  them  as  I  went  along.  I  say  "devis 
ing"  them,  for  I  drew  the  letter-press:  I  hadn't  then  mas 
tered  script. 

"Pretextat,  a  Tragedy  in  One  Act"  was  completed  at 
the  age  of  eleven.  My  favorite  passage  is  that  from  the 
soliloquy  of  the  Bishop  of  Rouen,  in  the  tense  third  scene: 

'Tis  useless  now  to  pray  in  formal  Prayer, 
"God  grant  me  courage"  is  all  my  lips  can  say. 
I  read  and  yet  I  know  not  what  I  read. 
"Courage,  courage,"  rushes  through  my  brain : 
"Courage,  courage,"  hisses  in  my  ear. 
My  cup  is  full,  full  to  overflowing — 
What  more  can  bishops  of  my  place  expect? 
Tossed  on  the  sea  of  Politics,  away,  poor  man, 
Away  from  home,  then  rescued  by  a  passing  ship, 
Call'd  Death,  which  haileth  from  Eternity, 
Brought  home,  brought  home  again 
Only  to  die  by  those  cruel  waves,  beaten 
Against  those  granite  rocks — men's  stony  nature — 

At  fourteen  I  wrote,  among  other  poems,  one  called  "Eve 
ning  on  the  Susquehanna."  I  took  it  with  me  to  St.  Paul's 
School,  at  Concord,  New  Hampshire.  During  the  Autumn 
of  my  first  year  there  the  school  paper  (I  was  proud  to 


130  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

become  its  editor  afterwards,  for  Marion  Crawford  and 
Owen  Wister  and  Arthur  Train  had  served  it  as  editors) 
held  a  prize-poem  contest,  and  this  poem  won  the  prize. 
That,  I  think,  was  my  first  published  work,  and  here  it  is: 

Evening  comes,  and,  slow  descending, 

Like  a  beacon  in  the  sky, 
Sinks  the  golden  sun  in  splendor, 

Kissing  lilac  clouds  good-bye. 
Gilding  pine  and  fen  and  farmland 

Painting  country  roof  and  spire, 
Leaving  all  the  East  in  darkness, 

Setting  all  the  West  on  fire. 

All  the  fields  are  growing  lonely; 

Corn-stacks  seem  to  fear  the  night; 
Overhead  into  the  sun-land 

Solemn  field  crows  wing  their  flight; 
All  the  river  dark  is  growing, 

Save  one  track  of  ling'ring  gold; 
On  the  farm  the  candles  twinkle, 

Yonder  homeward  strays  the  fold. 

Now  to  the  hills  the  sun's  a  crown; 

It   sinks — and    then    the   night   comes   down. 

After  that  I  leaned  more  and  more  towards  prose. 

BASIL  KING 

The  spirit  of  my  maiden  effort  can  only  be  understood 
by  those  few  American  readers  who  know  what  is 
meant  by  the  Oxford  Movement.     It  lives  now — I 
am  speaking  of  the  Oxford  Movement,  not  of  my  maiden 
effort — chiefly  in  Victorian  biography,  that  ocean  of  delight- 
ful  reading;  and,  here  in  the  United  States,  in  the  churches 
known  as  "High  Episcopalian,"  of  which  each  big  city  has 
one  or  two.     Historically,  it  is  considered  due  to  that  wave 
of    Romanticism   which   swept   over   Europe   in    the    early 


BASIL   KING  131 

Nineteenth  Century,  giving  us  Keats,  Shelley,  Scott  and 
Coleridge,  together  with  the  great  Romantic  school  of  paint 
ing  and  writing  which  became  a  force  in  France  somewhere 
about  1830.  Its  inspiration  lay  in  the  desire  to  infuse  into 
the  dry — I  am  speaking  not  in  the  sherry  or  champagne 
sense,  but  in  that  of  dust — to  infuse  into  the  dry  Roman 
ticism  of  the  day,  and  of  most  days,  something  of  warmth, 
color,  history,  and  the  picturesque. 

That  which  has  never  been  more  than  an  exotic  on  Ameri 
can  soil  was,  however,  in  my  boyhood,  an  indigenous  plant 
anywhere  within  the  borders  of  the  British  Empire. 

We  grew  up  amid  its  bloom  and  aroma.  Into  our  some 
what  meagre  Canadian  life  it  brought  the  fragrance  of  'far- 
off  remembered  things,"  and  linked  up  our  scattered  Colonies 
— much  more  isolated  from  each  other  than  they  are  today 
— with  a  tremendous  tradition  that  made  the  world  poetic. 
Our  school  life  was  steeped  in  it.  Our  stories  were  as  often 
of  the  exploits  of  martyrs  in  the  early  Church  as  they  were 
of  the  not  more  exciting  happenings  to  fur-traders  in  the 
Hudson  Bay  Company,  or  pirates  among  the  coral  islands. 

It  was  natural,  therefore,  that  my  maiden  effort  should 
reflect  these  interests  and  deal  with  what  I  may  call  the 
scenic  ecclesiastical. 

I  was  some  ten  years  of  age,  and  much  under  the  influ 
ence  of  a  school-mastering  English  divine,  intense  and 
ascetic  in  the  style  of  Cardinal  Manning,  with  literary 
yearnings  of  his  own — one  of  Wordsworth's  "poets  sown 
by  nature,  yet  wanting  the  accomplishment  of  verse."  He 
taught  us  geography  by  means  of  our  own  fiction.  That  is, 
we  travelled  in  imagination  all  over  the  map,  on  yachts, 
warships,  camels,  or  elephants,  according  to  choice,  and 
wrote  accounts  of  our  adventures.  We  dove  for  pearls,  we 
hunted  polar  bear,  we  sat  round  the  cauldrons  of  cannibals. 

For  me  the  cauldrons  of  cannibals  had  an  unspeakable 
fascination,  and  yet  I  could  never  remove  it  very  far  from 
the  scenic  ecclesiasticism  mentioned  above.  However  dar 
ingly  I  roamed  through  the  forests  of  the  Amazon  or  the 
mountains  of  Tibet,  the  tapestry  of  feasts  and  fasts  and 


132  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

mystic  stained-glass  presences  hung  round  all  my  tales.  Of 
these  none  merited  the  name  of  tale — they  were  in  truth 
no  more  than  the  unvarnished  reports  of  perils — till  one 
day  I  received,  right  out  of  heaven,  what  all  authors  know 
as  a  "Subject." 

It  was  a  good  subject,  and  my  very  first.  Of  its  tenor  I 
recall  no  more  than  that  the  ingredients  were  love  and  hate, 
cannibals  and  saints'  days.  There  was  a  mystery  in  it,  too, 
a  mystery  which  turned  on  some  such  miscalculation  as  to 
time  as  saves  the  situation  in  "Round  the  World  in  Eighty 
Days."  Working  up  to  that  with  a  truly  dramatic  intensity 
I  came  to  the  crowning  moment  when  the  hero — myself — 
routed  his  enemies  and  saved  his  person  from  the  cauldron 
by  exclaiming,  "Ah,  but  this  year  Ash- Wednesday  comes  on 
a  Monday!" 

There  was  in  this  triumphant  cry,  sprung  when  all  seemed 
lost,  the  elements  of  surprise,  confusion,  and  victory.  I 
scanned  the  face  of  the  English  divine,  watching  for  the 
effect  when  he  came  to  the  ingenious  climax.  I  remember 
only  that  his  mouth  twitched  as  he  silently  passed  the  manu 
script  back  to  me,  tapping  on  the  words  with  his  pencil. 

Even  then  I  failed  to  grasp  the  significance  of  this  sound 
less  observation.  I  grasped  it  only  after  long  thought,  and 
in  solitude — grasped  it  with  that  rising  of  the  blood  to  the 
whole  surface  of  the  skin,  hot,  shamed,  terrible,  which  we 
know  as  blushing  all  over. 

But  there  it  was! — and  there  it  is! — that  escape  from 
me  of  the  Absolute  Truth  which  I  have  sought  all  my  life 
and  never  captured. 

Now,  after  twenty  years  of  writing,  Absolute  Truth 
seems  to  me  like  a  figure  I  have  seen  on  an  Etruscan  vase 
in  the  Vatican.  It  is  called  "Fame  Eluding  Her  Follower." 
It  represents  a  female  figure  making  a  prodigious  spring 
which  puts  the  right  foot  incredibly  far  in  front  and  leaves 
the  left  incredibly  far  behind,  while  towards  the  poor  man 
panting  in  her  rear  she  turns  her  profile,  with  her  thumb  to 
her  nose  and  her  fingers  stretched  in  a  well-known  classic 
gesture. 


RICHARD   LE   GALLIENNE  133 

RICHARD  LE  GALLIENNE 

How  I  began!  The  question  rather  startles  one — 
makes  one  look  up  fearfully  at  the  clock.  Is  it  time 
already  to  be  asked  that  question?  Surely,  it  was 
only  yesterday — it  cannot  be  all  these  years — since  we 
"began"! 

O  Time!  Surely  it  was  only  yesterday  that  I  was  a  boy 
in  Liverpool,  with  a  book  under  my  arm  dreaming  that  the 
only  thing  worth  doing  in  the  world  was  the  writing  of  a 
book;  the  only  success  worth  achieving — its  being  published. 
How  that  dream  came  to  be  in  my  blood  I  scarcely  know. 
My  mother  loved  poetry,  my  father  loved  theology.  She 
had  a  romantic  nature,  he  had  a  scholarly  bent.  Many 
books  were  in  our  household,  but  the  majority  were  not  to 
my  youthful  taste.  At  first  sight,  the  great  bookcase  seemed 
a  veritable  fortress  of  theological  commentary ;  but  there  was 
a  secular  corner  high  up  at  the  top  where  a  small  collection 
of  more  human  volumes  crowded  together  as  if  for  mutual 
protection  and  to  keep  each  other  warm;  some  volumes  of 
Carlyle,  The  Waverley  Novels,  and  a  set  of  Dickens. 
There  was  little  poetry;  but  there  was  Burns,  Byron,  Words 
worth,  Longfellow,  George  Herbert  and  William  Cowper. 
No  Keats,  no  Shelley,  no  Coleridge!  Never  mind;  the 
adventure  of  finding  out  those  poets  for  one's  self  was  to 
be  all  the  more  thrilling. 

Tennyson  was  to  be  introduced  to  me  by  a  schoolmaster 
of  rarely  gentle  nature  and  sensitive  love  of  letters,  and  it 
was  he  who  bought  me  my  first  copy  of  Tennyson.  It  was 
a  prize  for  my  excellence  in — "Divinity"!  That  day,  I 
remember,  I  saw  the  name  of  Swinburne  for  the  first  time 
on  a  newly  published  volume,  but  Swinburne  was  to  mean 
nothing  to  me  until  long  after. 

Indeed,  in  those  days,  I  cared  little  for  poetry.  My  pas 
sion — possibly  caught  from  Scott — was  a  passion  for  an 
tiquities — old  castles  and  abbeys  and  Druidical  remains. 
The  distinguished  bookshop  of  Messrs.  Young  and  Sons  was, 
as,  doubtless,  it  still  is,  a  veritable  treasure  house  of  such 


134  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

antiquarian  lore,  and  there,  thanks  to  the  hospitality  of 
those  scholarly  bookmen — when  I  had  exchanged  my  school 
desk  for  the  desk  of  an  accountant's  articled  clerk — I  was 
able  to  spend  rapt  luncheon  hours  among  the  old  folios  and 
quartos,  and  very  much  more  than  my  slender  pocket- 
money.  But  there  it  was,  too,  that  my  eyes  first  fell  on 
the  first  line  of  Keats'  "Endymion."  How  well  I  remem 
ber  that  strange  moment  of  "poetry's  divine  first  finger 
touch"! 

Soon  after  this,  to  the  dismay  of  my  elders,  I  began  to 
write  verses  to  sundry  fair  faces — surreptitiously,  between 
the  pages  of  my  ledger;  yet  I  must  say  for  myself,  and  I 
think  my  old  employers  would  bear  me  out,  that  I  was  not 
an  absolute  dunce  as  an  accountant,  either.  However  well 
or  ill  I  have  been  able  to  write  books,  I  could  match  any 
of  my  fellows  at  balancing  them;  and  I  still  treasure  some 
volumes  that  came  to  me  as  prizes  in  certain  stern  ac 
countancy  examinations. 

Liverpool,  while  not  exactly  clement  to  the  Muses,  was 
not  quite  without  literary  traditions  and  associations,  of 
which  I  made  the  most.  The  shade  of  Roscoe  the  historian 
haunted  one  of  its  libraries;  the  great  Matthew  Arnold  came 
sometimes  to  stay  with  friends  in  the  suburbs ;  at  Walmsley's 
Book  Shop  in  Lord  Street,  Mr.  William  Watson's  "Epi 
grams"  had  been  published  a  few  years  before;  and  occa 
sionally,  like  wings  of  prophecy,  the  locks  and  cloak  of  Mr. 
Hall  Caine  passed  over  the  city.  Men  who  occasionally 
wrote  for  magazines  and  reviews  did  actually  walk  its 
streets,  bright  beings  of  whom  I  sometimes  caught  awful 
glimpses.  One  of  these,  Mr.  Walter  Lewin,  actually  wrote 
signed  articles  for  "The  Academy."  By  wonderful  chance, 
he  became  my  friend,  and  took  an  interest  in  those  verses 
to  the  fair  faces.  Mr.  James  Ashcroft  Nobb — whose  gifts 
both  as  a  poet  and  a  critic  have  never  been  sufficiently  appre 
ciated — dropping  in  sometimes  from  Southport,  did  the 
same. 

These  friends  introduced  me  to  another,  the  excellent 
artistic  printer,  Mr.  John  Robb,  by  whose  aid  at  length 


RICHARD    LE   GALLIENNE  135 

those  verses  turned  into  a  fairy-like  little  book  on  hand 
made  paper,  with  rough  edges,  rubricated  initials,  and  an 
tique  boards,  which,  like  a  shy  flower  blossoming  out  of  a 
ledger,  presently  made  its  "privately  printed"  appearance. 

Meanwhile,  I  had  been  writing  bookish  and  antiquarian 
articles  for  Mr.  Elliot  Stock's  Book-Lore  and  affiliated 
magazines.  By  the  strange  kindness  of  subscribers  to  these 
periodicals  and  sundry  private  friends,  the  whole  edition 
disappeared — but  I  only  recall  that  far-off  excitement  today 
because  a  copy  of  the  little  book  found  its  way  into  the 
hands  of  Mr.  John  Lane,  who,  with  Mr.  Elkin  Matthews, 
was  just  then  dreaming  of  "The  Bodley  Head."  Mr.  Lane, 
as  we  all  know,  has  ever  been  an  inspired  collector,  and 
some  lines  of  mine  on  first  editions  had  caught  his  fancy. 
Thanks  to  them,  we  became  friends — and  what  I,  in  com 
mon  with  other  young  writers  of  that  time,  owe  to  Mr. 
Lane's  rare  love  and  instinct  for  letters  might  well  make  a 
separate  history. 

By  this  time  I  had  said  good-bye  to  my  office.  It  was  a 
parting  due  to  what  one  might  call  mutual  incompatibility; 
yet  of  that  old  office  I  cherish  innumerable  warm  memories. 
It  was  to  me  a  rare  university  of  humanity.  But  I  am 
afraid  I  was  more  appreciated  by  my  associates  than  by  my 
employers,  and  I  still  treasure  among  my  private  archives  a 
letter  written  to  my  father  by  the  senior  member  of  the 
firm,  in  which  he  said  that  they  feared  they  could  make 
little  of  me,  for  "my  head  was  so  filled  with  literature, 
and  I  was  so  idle  that  I  was  demoralizing  the  whole  office." 

So  I  rented  a  great  old  loft  in  an  ancient  office  building 
near  the  docks,  turned  it  into  a  study — with  the  co-operation 
of  an  ever-helpful  mother — and  seriously,  as  they  used  to 
say,  "commenced  author." 

Love  of  De  Quincey  and  Lamb  and  Thoreau,  and  later 
Walter  Pater  and  Stevenson,  had  caused  me  just  then  to 
put  aside  purely  poetic  ambitions,  and  in  that  old  loft  I 
dreamed  the  dream — shared  with  others  of  my  generation — 
of  writing  prose  that  should  indicate  and  include  the  quali- 


136  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

ties  of   poetry,   that  imaginative  prose  of  which  we  have 
heard  no  little  since  then. 

To  that  old  loft  came  my  first  commission — from  Mr. 
Lane — to  write  a  book  on  George  Meredith.  I  would 
hardly  venture  upon  the  task  now,  but  one  is  afraid  of 
nothing  at  twenty-one.  So  I  wrote  the  book  for  Mr.  Lane, 
and,  as  a  result  of  it,  went  up  to  London.  It  chanced  that 
just  at  that  moment  one  of  our  "T.P.'s"  earliest  successes, 
the  Star,  was  about  to  lose  one  of  its  most  valued  con 
tributors,  Mr.  Clement  Shorter.  His  column  on  "Books 
and  Bookmen"  was  vacant  and  up  to  competition.  I  took 
my  fling  at  it,  fearfully,  as  one  should  essay  to  scale  some 
inaccessible  height.  But,  one  incredible  afternoon,  it  was 
announced  to  me  that  I  had  been  chosen  to  fill  the  giant's 
robe.  I  was  to  be  paid  for  writing  every  Thursday  about 
the  books  I  loved ;  I  was,  too,  to  have  my  pick  of  all  the 
books  that  came  into  the  office — and  yet,  think  of  it,  I  was 
to  be  paid! 

BRUNO  LESSING 

I  first  became  a  genius  in  1902  or  1906  or  thereabouts — 
I  am  not  good  on  dates.     It  all  began  with  an  inspira 
tion.     You  know  how  inspiration  comes:  you  sit  in  an 
armchair,   smoking,   your  mind   a  perfect  blank,  when   out 
from  the  universe's  limitless  space  there  comes  an  idea.    The 
idea  that  came  to  me  on  that  memorable  day  was:     Why 
not  try  to  make  a  little  money  on  the  side? 

I  was  a  reporter  on  the  Sun  in  those  days  and  was  already 
famous  for  the  small  salary  that  I  was  getting.  When  I 
felt  the  divine  affktus  within  me  I  thought  first  of  making 
the  extra  money^  singing  in  grand  opera — I  have  a  won 
derful  voice — or  by  going  into  partnership  with  a  friend 
of  mine  named  Hagan  in  a  select,  little  cafe.  It  was  at 
this  juncture  that  Samuel  Hopkins  Adams,  then  one  of  the 
editors  of  McClures  Magazine,  suggested  to  me  that  I 
write  a  short  story. 

I  wrote  one — my  very  first — and,  to  my  amazement,  it 


BRUNO   LESSING  137 

was  not  only  accepted  and  printed  but  they  sent  me  a  check 
for  it.  I  remember  that  my  friend  Hagan  cashed  the  check 
for  me  and  when  I  told  him  how  I  had  acquired  it  he 
sighed  and  remarked,  "Some  people  fall  in  soft!" 

The  title  of  the  story  was  "The  End  of  the  Task."  As 
a  matter  of  fact  it  was  only  the  beginning.  Because  Adams 
suggested  that  I  write  a  whole  wad  of  short  stories  and 
publish  them  in  book  form.  I  have  never  cared  much  for 
Adams  since  then.  Had  it  not  been  for  his  suggestions  I 
might  have  gone  into  that  deal  with  Hagan  and,  by  this 
time,  might  have  retired  to  the  south  of  France. 

Anyway,  I  wrote  the  stories  and  ultimately  the  book 
was  published.  It  was  called  "Children  of  Men."  It  was 
a  very  beautiful  book  with  a  green  cover.  It  marked  an 
epoch  in  literary  history.  The  publisher  gave  away  nearly 
5,000  copies  to  literary  editors  who  wrote  magnificent  re 
views  of  it  in  which  my  genius  was  described  in  detail. 
After  that  I  think  he  sold  a  couple  of  hundred  copies  on 
which  I  received  a  royalty.  Somewhere  there  is  a  room  in 
a  storage  warehouse  filled  with  the  balance  of  the  first  edi 
tion.  I  may  say,  parenthetically,  that  I  am  open  to  any  reason 
able  proposition  and  will  even  autograph  every  copy.  When  I 
consider,  however,  how  my  receipts  from  that  book  compared 
with  what  Hagan  and  I  could  have  taken  in  on  an  ordinary 
Saturday  night,  I  always  feel  sad  and  blame  it  on  Samuel 
Hopkins  Adams. 

Two  other  collections  of  my  short  stories  were  afterward 
published  and  I  bought  myself  an  overcoat  with  the  pro 
ceeds.  Those  were  the  days  before  overcoats  were  so  high. 
Hagan  recently  bought  himself  an  office  building. 

Nothing  could  have  wrested  this  confession  from  me  ex 
cept  an  appeal  to  aid  a  Fund  for  needy  authors.  I  am 
heartily  in  favor  of  this  Fund  and  am  anxious  to  see  it  grow 
to  huge  proportions.  And,  having  obliged  the  Authors' 
League  by  making  this  contribution,  I  hope  they  will  re 
ciprocate  by  sending  me  the  address  of  the  Fund  together 
with  some  blank  forms  of  application.  An  author  should 
always  be  prepared  for  the  worst. 


138  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

SINCLAIR  LEWIS 

A  Yale  Sophomore,  with  neither  the  picturesqueness  of 
the  lads  who  work  their  way  through  and  study 
Greek  in  the  box-offices  of  burlesque  theatres,  nor 
the  wealth  and  good-fellowship  of  the  men  who  are  admitted 
to  the  sanctity  of  junior  societies.  A  heeler  of  The  Yale  Lit., 
exulting  in  tenth-rate  Tennysonian  verses  about  Lancelot, 
troubadours,  and  young  females  reading  poetry  by  firelight. 
All  the  while  an  imagination  as  full  of  puerile  make-believe 
as  that  of  a  ten-year-old  boy. 

Katherine  Cecil  Thurston's  "The  Masquerader"  ap 
peared,  and  the  romantic  read  it  at  one  sitting,  in  Phil  Mor 
rison's  room — a  rich  room,  with  etchings!  Thereafter  he 
was  in  his  make-believe  a  masquerader;  now  a  disguised 
nobody  thrilling  the  House  of  Commons;  now  a  ruined 
Cabinet  Minister. 

In  the  old  Brothers  and  Linonia  Library  he  found  a 
novel  written  by  Israel  Zangwill  in  his  first  days  and  signed 
with  a  pen  name.  The  title  of  the  novel  was  "The  Premier 
and  the  Painter,"  and  in  plot  and  characters  it  was  a  proto 
type  of  "The  Masquerader." 

The  sophomore  was  thrilled;  he  was  a  Discoverer;  he 
had  found  a  Plagiarism;  he  could  Collate,  now,  like  Billy 
Phelps  or  Tinker.  He  wrote  an  aged-sounding  article  about 
the  similarity  of  the  two  books,  and  it  was  typed  by  a  class 
mate,  Allan  Updegraff,  later  to  be  a  novelist  and  an  inno 
vator  in  poetry.  The  two  discussed  the  name  to  be  signed. 
The  author  had  three  names,  whereof  the  first  was  Harry. 
Now,  Harry,  they  agreed,  was  quite  all  right  for  Commons 
and  the  Chat  Noir  lunch  counter  but  not  for  the  1904 
literary  world  where  one  could  meet  geniuses  who  had  seen 
Richard  Le  Gallienne  and  James  Huneker,  where  bearded 
men  sat  up  late  nights  to  discuss  George  Meredith,  where 
one  could,  if  a  whopping  success,  make  five  thousand  dol 
lars  a  year! 

The  "Harry"  was  buried — and  the  article  was  accepted 
by  The  Critic,  selig. 


SINCLAIR   LEWIS  139 

To  the  sophomore's  flustered  delight  it  was  taken  seri 
ously.  The  New  York  Times  Book  Review  gave  a  mildly 
cynical  editorial  to  it,  and  Mrs.  Thurston  made  answer — 
effectively. 

The  sophomore  was  altogether  certain  that  he  had  ar 
rived.  He  "dashed  off  a  little  thing" — it  was  an  era  when 
one  still  said  that,  and  spoke  of  one's  "brain  children."  The 
little  thing  was  a  child  verse  and  as  the  author  had,  at  the 
time,  never  had  anything  to  do  with  children,  it  was  realistic 
and  optimistic.  Not  only  was  it  taken  by  a  woman's  maga 
zine  but  three  dollars  was,  or  were,  paid  for  it! 

The  sophomore  began  to  spout  verse,  short  stories, 
Whimsical  Essays;  he  kept  a  dozen  of  them  on  the  road  at 
once;  and  for  the  next  five  years  he  was  a  commercial  suc 
cess.  True,  his  contributions  were  artistically  worthless 
but  he  must  have  made,  by  working  every  evening  and 
every  Sunday,  an  average  of  nearly  forty  dollars  a  year. 

But  since  then  he  has  suspected  that  commercialism,  even 
thus  rewarded,  is  not  enough — no,  not  enough! 


LAURA  JEAN  LIB  BEY 

"Oh  happiest  hour  of  life's  first  stage 
And  e'en  perhaps  of  any  age, 
Where  culminates  the  sweet  ideal, 
And  all  beyond  is  fact  and  real." 

Two  school  girls,  Ida  and  Laura,  sauntered  slowly  home 
from  school  one  sunny  September  afternoon,  discuss 
ing  speaking  pieces  and  reading  essays.     Ida's  poem 
that  afternoon  had  proven  a  decided  frost.   Laura's  essay  had 
fared   little  better.     A  turn   in   the  conversation   led   to — 
stories.    I,  Laura,  said  flippantly  that  I  believed  I  could  write 
a  little  story  good  enough  to  be  printed.    Ide  screamed  with 
laughter,  daring  me  to  try  it. 
I  accepted  the  challenge. 

Before  the  week  was  over,  I  stole  over  to  the  New  York 
Ledger  office,  asking  to  see  the  gentleman  who  printed  the 
Ledger.  Mr.  Robert  Bonner,  who  had  entered  at  that 


140  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

moment,  turned,  looking  sharply  at  the  girl  with  a  braid 
down  her  back  and  dress  to  her  shoe-tops,  who  held  a  roll 
of  uncovered  foolscap  in  her  hand. 

I  timidly  stated  my  errand.  Sitting  down  in  a  chair 
close  by,  then  and  there,  the  great  publisher  read  the  four- 
page  story  through. 

I  was  quite  surprised  when  he  asked  me  if  I  was  "quite 
sure  I  had  written  it  myself — without  help  from  anybody." 
I  assured  him  it  was  a  little  story  I  had  composed  myself. 

To  my  great  wonderment,  he  said  he  would  take  it — 
with  a  proviso — that  I  would  not  come  near  the  Ledger 
office  with  another  story,  or  send  a  story  in,  or  write  to 
him  about  it — for  the  next  four  years. 

I  did  not  realize  the  extent  of  my  promise  until  I  thought 
it  over  as  I  went  home — clutching  tightly  the  five  dollar 
bill  he  had  given  me  in  my  hand. 

I  confided  my  wonderful  secret  to  Ide,  believing  in  her 
solemn  promise  that  she  would  never  breathe  a  word  of  it. 
Alas!  Even  the  fidelity  of  a  chum  cannot  always  be  de 
pended  on;  the  next  day  every  one  in  school  knew  about  it 
— and  then  the  sale  of  the  Ledger  took  a  bound  upward — 
all  the  girls  bought  it — to  see  LAURA  JEAN'S  story  in — 
PRINT. 

To  my  horror  and  dismay,  week  after  week  slipped  by 
and  it  did  not  appear.  When  the  second  year  dragged 
its  slow  length  by  and  there  was  no  sign  of  it,  every  one 
in  the  school  poked  sly  fun  at  me  by  asking,  demurely,  if 
my  story  would  be  out  next  week.  I  was  deeply  humiliated. 
I  knew  my  mates  did  not  believe  that  I  had  sold  a  story, 
despite  my  insistence. 

This  calamity  decided  me  that  writing  was  evidently  not 
my  forte — a  story  that  I  might  write  would  never  get  into 
print.  At  the  end  of  another  two  years  the  writing-bee  had 
winged  its  way  from  my  bonnet.  The  story  had  not  been 
printed,  I  had  quite  forgotten  about  it — and  also  that  the 
time  limit  Robert  Bonner  had  set  was  up.  At  this  auspicious 
time  I  received  a  note  from  Ide,  who  had  moved  to  New 
York,  inviting  me  to  a  matinee  she  had  tickets  for.  She 


LAURA   JEAN    LIBBEY  141 

added:  "It's  the  most  wonderful  play,  every  one  says,  and 
the  girl  who  is  the  star  of  it  is  a  peach.  You  mustn't  miss 
it,  Laura." 

I  went,  little  dreaming  it  was  to  be  the  turning-point  of 
my  life.  The  play  was  absorbing;  I  was  swept  along  like 
a  leaf  in  a  whirlpool.  As  the  curtain  descended  on — the 
end — I  made  up  my  mind  that  I  must  be  an  actress  like 
the  star  who  had  so  enthralled  me.  I  was  wise  enough  not 
to  breathe  a  word  of  it  to  Ide,  who  had  quite  forgotten  to 
tease  me  about  the  little  story — if  it  would  be  printed  next 
week — if  not,  why  not? 

Ide  was  exceedingly  anxious  to  get  home,  so  we  parted  in 
the  lobby.  The  next  moment  the  pictures  of  the  star  caught 
my  eye ;  I  stopped  a  few  moments  to  admire  them ;  I  turned 
away  and  saw  to  my  consternation  that  a  heavy  downpour 
had  set  in.  There  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  wait  a  little 
while.  I  heard  people  about  me  saying  it  was  but  a  thunder- 
shower  and  would  soon  be  over. 

As  I  stood  there  waiting,  a  scheme  so  daring  that  it  almost 
took  away  my  breath  flitted  through  my  brain.  Why  not 
see  the  manager,  tell  him  that  I  had  determined  to  be  a  star 
like  the  one  in  the  play  I  had  just  witnessed,  and  had  con 
cluded  that  his  theatre  would  be  quite  the  proper  place  for 
my  debut?  I  acted  upon  the  thought.  I  sent  in  my  mes 
sage;  an  usher  soon  returned,  stating  that  Mr.  Daniel 
Frohman  would  see  me.  I  was  ushered  into  his  private 
office. 

A  tall,  handsome,  slender  gentleman,  seated  at  a  desk, 
looked  up,  rose,  bowed  slightly,  indicating  a  seat  by  his 
desk  with  a  wave  of  his  hand. 

As  I  saw  him  in  that  moment  I  have  remembered  him 
ever  since.  Time  can  never  efface  that  mental  picture  of 
Daniel  Frohman,  the  great  manager.  I  never  afterward 
remembered  in  what  manner  I  reached  that  chair  or  in 
what  words  I  made  known  to  him  my  mission.  Stammer 
ing  confusedly,  I  told  him  of  the  little  story  I  had  sold  to 
Mr.  Bonner  which  had  never  been  printed,  and  that — now 
— I  wanted  to  be  a  star  on  the  stage. 


142  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

He  listened  attentively;  then,  when  I  couldn't  find  one 
more  word  to  say — very  quietly,  kindly,  and  in  the  gentlest 
of  voices,  he  talked  to  me,  graphically,  eloquently,  picturing 
stage  life  without  its  glamour.  He  told  of  the  hopes  and 
ambitions  of  thousands  of  young  girls  who  had  been  lured 
to  the  footlights  by  just  such  dazzling  dreams  of  success  as 
I  was  indulging  in — talented,  beautiful  young  girls  who 
had  never  had  the  chance  of  advancement  come  their  way, 
and  in  whose  breasts  hope  had  long  since  died.  He  told 
me  of  the  fair  young  stars  on  the  pinnacle  of  fame  and  favor 
while  their  youth  and  beauty  lasted — who  had  at  last  be 
come  costume  women  in  the  theatres,  old,  poor,  and  broken 
hearted.  He  added:  "The  few  who  have  reached  the  top 
owe  their  success — among  overwhelming  obstacles — to  the 
force  of  some  peculiar  circumstance  such  as  great  beauty 
of  face,  talent  of  unusually  high  order — which,  perhaps,  only 
a  line  of  speaking  part  revealed — or,  perhaps,  having  mem 
orized  a  star's  part,  being  ready  to  take  her  place  in  an 
emergency,  showing  unsuspected  ability,"  etc. 

Mr.  Frohman  advised  me  most  earnestly  to  try  writing 
again,  declaring  that  so  conscientious  a  publisher  as  Robert 
Bonner  would  never  have  encouraged  me  by  buying  the 
little  story,  despite  the  fact  that  he  had  never  used  it,  if 
"there  had  not  been  a  germ  of  promise  in  it." 

He  added,  with  a  pleasant  smile  that  also  made  a  deep 
impression  upon  me,  that  I  might  get  nearer  the  stage  by 
writing  great  stories  than  I  then  imagined,  because  there 
would  always  be  a  need  for  good  plots  for  stage  productions. 

He  talked  to  me  for  fully  an  hour  and  a  half.  As  I  rose 
to  go  he  held  out  the  same  shapely  white  hand  that  had 
waved  me  to  a  seat,  asking  earnestly:  "Do  you  think  you 
will  take  my  advice,  and  try  to  be  an  authoress,  instead  of  an 
actress?"  I  looked  up  into  his  face,  and  after  a  few 
moments  thinking  it  over,  I  answered  emphatically,  "Yes, 
sir!  I  will  do  as  you  advise." 

In  the  years  that  followed  after,  I  wondered  if  handsome 
Mr.  Daniel  remembered  me,  or  my  name,  and  if  he  would 
know  how  hard  I  was  trying  to  write  a  story  that  might  be 


LAURA   JEAN    LIBBEY  143 

played  on  his  stage.  He  was  my  first  hero.  If  it  had  not 
been  for  Daniel  Frohman,  there  would  never  have  been  in 
literature  a  Laura  Jean  Libbey. 

JOSEPH  C.  LINCOLN 

My  first  attempt  at  persuading  an  editor  to  exchange 
his  magazine's  money  for  something  of  my  creation 
was  a  success.  I  meant  it  to  be.  I  went  gunning 
for  that  editor,  one  barrel  loaded  with  a  poem,  the  other 
with  an  illustration.  As  I  fired  both  at  the  same  time  he 
came  down  without  a  flutter. 

Prior  to  this  assault-with-intent-to-sell  I  had,  of  course, 
encouraged  the  family  by  various  outbreaks  of  genius — or 
of  geniuses,  for  I  seem  to  have  had  all  kinds.  As  a  boy  I 
owned  and  operated  a  miniature  theatre,  for  which  I  wrote 
all  the  plays  and  painted  all  the  scenery.  Once  I  wrote, 
produced  and  performed  a  comic  opera,  not  only  writing 
the  dialogue  and  lyrics,  painting  the  scenery  and  stealing 
the  music,  but  singing  all  the  parts  myself.  The  effect  was 
all  that  I  had  hoped.  My  aunt  thought  I  ought  to  go  into 
literature,  my  cousins  thought  I  ought  to  go  into  art,  and 
my  uncle,  who  was  fond  of  music,  thought  I  ought  to  go 
into  solitary  confinement. 

But  this  juvenile  stuff  was  mere  frivol  compared  to  the 
real  thing. 

My  first  serious  attempt  at  literary  safe-cracking  came 
to  me  as  an  inspiration.  I  was  a  bookkeeper  at  the  time, 
a  fact  regretted  by  both  my  employers  and  myself.  As  I 
sat  at  my  desk  before  my  ledger,  thinking — not  ledgerizing 
for  the  moment,  or  even  the  forenoon,  but  thinking — as  I 
sat  there,  a  young  woman  bicycled  by  the  office  window.  She 
was  dressed  in  "bloomer"  costume  and  everyone  stared  at 
her  as  a  dashing,  daring  person.  Now,  confound  you,  you 
know  how  long  ago  it  was! 

On  my  desk,  partially  covering  the  ledger  page,  was  a 
copy  of  Puck.  In  that  copy  was  a  joke  about  a  henpecked 
husband ;  there  was  at  least  one  in  any  copy  of  Puck.  I  had 


144  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

been  looking  at  Puck;  now  I  looked  at  the  young  woman 
in  bloomers.  And  my  inspiration  struck  me.  Having  been 
struck,  I  resolved  to  "pass  it  on,"  to  sandbag  an  editor 
with  it. 

On  my  way  home  that  evening  I  bought  paper,  two  "crow- 
quill"  pens  and  a  bottle  of  Higgins'  drawing  ink.  That 
night  the  family  heard  me  groaning.  In  the  morning  they 
knew  why.  I  had  written  a  poem  about  a  girl;  the  poem 
said  she  was  my  wife,  but  that  was  just  foolishness,  for  I 
hadn't  any  wife.  I  explained  this  to  the  family  with  great 
care.  The  wife  in  the  poem,  you  see,  had  said,  before  we 
were  married,  she — well,  she  had  boasted  that  after  we 
were  married  she  intended  to  "wear  the— er — breeches,"  you 
know.  Nothing  smart,  Town  Topicsy,  or  anything  of  that 
sort;  merely  a  joke,  common  saying,  that's  all.  Well,  then 
she  took  to  riding  a  wheel  in  the  most  up-to-date  costume, 
and,  by  George!  there  she  was  really  wearing  the— er — 
garment,  as  it  were. 

Clever?    What  do  you  think? 

And,  in  case  the  editor  should  miss  the  idea  in  the  poem, 
I  drew  a  picture  of  it.  Pen  and  ink,  it  was,  with  the  girl 
in  bloomers.  The  lower  two-thirds  of  her  was  borrowed 
from  one  of  Erhardt's  drawings  in  Puck,  but  I  invented  her 
face.  And  I  sent  that  poem  and  sketch,  rolled  and  in  a 
pasteboard  tube,  to  the  editor  of  a  bicycle  weekly.  There 
was  never  a  doubt  in  my  mind  that  he  would  buy  them. 
I  had  one  of  those  things  that  soldiers  have  before  battles— 
a  premonition,  that  is  what  I  had.  I  thought — I  told  the 
family — that  I  should  probably  be  paid  a  good  many  dollars 
for  that  tube's  contents. 

I  was  not — quite.  At  the  end  of  the  month  the  editor 
wrote  saying  he  accepted  the  outfit  and  that  the  business 
office  would  send  a  check.  It  did,  two  weeks  later,  a  check 
for  one  dollar.  I  was  a  little  disappointed.  As  I  explained 
to  the  family,  it  seemed  to  me  that  either  the  drawing  or 
poem  sent  alone  would  have  been  worth  a  dollar. 

The  poem  and  drawing  are  before  me  now  as  I  write,  like 
the  pigeon-toed — no,  pigeon-blood  ruby,  or  the  map  of  the 
island,  in  stories.  As  I  look  at  them  as  they  eventually 


JOSEPH    C.    LINCOLN  145 

appeared  in  that  long-deceased  weekly,  I  think  my  youthful 
judgment  was  good.  If  I  had  sent  only  one  of  them  I  think 
it  would  have  been  worth  a  dollar.  If  I  had  sent  neither 
I  think  it  would  have  been  worth  at  least  two  dollars — or 
even  more. 


GRACE  DENIO  LITCHFIELD 

As  I  began  writing  in  prose  and  verse  as  soon  as  I  could 
spell — perhaps  somewhat  before  I  had  attained  that 
point  in  my  education — my  earliest  effusion  is  lost 
in  the  shades  of  antiquity.  As,  moreover,  upon  reaching  the 
age  of  discretion  I  praiseworthily  destroyed  all  my  writings 
prior  to  my  twentieth  year,  fearing  lest  a  too  lenient  Liter 
ary  Executor  should  present  them  to  a  long-suffering  public, 
I  have,  luckily,  no  records  of  juvenilia  left. 

I  began  publishing  only  after  losing  a  beloved  parent,  to 
whose  memory  I  wished  to  put  up  a  window  with  money  of 
my  own  earning. 

Selecting  three  of  my  poems,  therefore,  I  sent  them  off 
to  the  then  three  foremost  magazines.  Receiving  all  three 
poems  back,  I  changed  them  about,  mailing  them  to  the  same 
periodicals.  Receiving  all  three  back  for  the  second  time, 
I  once  more  changed  them  about  and  sent  them  to  the  same 
editorial  offices,  requesting  an  immediate  answer,  as  I  was 
sailing  for  Europe  in  a  week's  time. 

In  proof  of  the  value  of  perseverence,  Lippincott  promptly 
accepted  the  submitted  poem,  "The  Milky  Way,"  returning 
me  a  check  for  twelve  dollars  in  payment — the  tiny  nest-egg 
for  my  window,  which  before  long  was  in  place  in  Grace 
Church,  Brooklyn. 

My  first  short  story,  "One  Chapter,"  had  better  luck  from 
the  start,  at  once  finding  acceptance  with  The  Century  Mag 
azine,  as  did  my  first  novel,  "Only  an  Incident,"  which  was 
brought  out  by  the  Putnams,  and  in  both  firms  I  formed 
friendships  that  have  lasted  unbrokenly  through  all  the  sub 
sequent  years.  Thus  much,  at  least,  do  I  gratefully  owe  to 
my  pen. 


146  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

JOHN  LUTHER  LONG 

I  fear  (and  regret!)  that  "Madame  Butterfly"  must  be 
considered  my  maiden  effort,  though  I  had  quite  ceased 
to  be  maiden  at  that  time;  and  though,  again,  I  have  a 
vague  and  guilty  recollection  of  certain  fearsome  verses  be 
ginning  with  "O,"  none  of  which  I  remember  and  which 
I  trust  posterity  will  not. 

But  "Madame  Butterfly"  and  I  are  august  accidents  on 
the  highway  of  letters,  inasmuch  as  I  had  not  the  least  in 
tention  of  becoming  an  absurd  Literary  Person.  I  was  at 
that  time,  indeed,  practising  that  distinguished  and  sinister 
profession  called  The  Law. 

However,  perhaps  because  my  profession  was  sinister,  or 
because  I  practised  it  too  sedulously  for  a  loafer,  I  suffered 
what  the  petit  jury  of  doctors  called  a  profound  nervous 
collapse.  And  when  the  said  doctors  after  months  of  try 
ing  decided  to  send  me  away  (perhaps  before  I  should  go 
away  without  their  sending),  I  was  carried  off  to  a  little 
house  in  a  little  village  by  the  sea,  and  there  again  put  to 
bed  at  what  seemed  the  bottom  of  a  well,  where  only  the 
stars  could  be  seen. 

Now,  stars  are  most  lovely  things  at  night,  and  shiny; 
but,  for  the  day  and  all  the  day,  nothing  but  stars — even 
the  Milky  Way  or  the  unloosed  bands  of  Orion — dare  an 
earthworm  say  that  even  these  exalted  galaxies  of  suns  and 
worlds  might  become  tiresome?  So  the  nerves  and  the  va 
rious  allied  thingumbobs  collapsed  a  bit  more,  and  ever  a 
bit  more,  until  the  new  jury  of  sea-doctors  said,  terribly, 
that  I  must  cease  thinking  of  my  lost  law  practice  (which 
wasn't  an  insuperable  task)  and  think  of  something  entirely 
different. 

And  the  entirely  different  thing  chanced  to  be  "Madame 
Butterfly."  I  suppose  I  might  stop  there;  but  to  save  those 
languishing  authors  who  demand  the  details  of  our  suffer 
ings — is  it  not?  And  the  above  is  easier  said  than  done. 

It  seemed  that  though  I  might  not  sit  up  in  my  well, 
there  was  no  reason  why  I  might  not  take  a  typewriter 


JOHN   LUTHER   LONG  147 

(machine)  to  bed  with  me;  nor  further,  why  I  might  not 
balance  it  on  my  stomach  while  I  wrote.  And  this  I  learned 
to  do.  However,  there  then  appeared  to  be  a  writing- 
paper  famine  in  the  little  house  in  the  little  vil 
lage  by  the  sea,  though  there  was  plenty  of  manila 
wrapping  paper  which  had  been  used  but  once — for  meat  or 
bread,  don't  you  know — and  some  of  this  I  tore  neatly  into 
sheets,  approximately  the  size  of  this  small  one,  and  on  these, 
on  the  typewriter,  on  my  stomach,  in  bed,  in  the  little  house 
in  the  little  village  by  the  lit — sea,  "Madame  Butterfly"  was 
written. 

And  now  follows  the  secret  part  of  the  story  of  "Butter 
fly"  which  I  am  loath  to  confess  but  which  the  searching 
cross-examination  of  many  Who's-Who's  is  so  likely  to  dis 
close  that,  rather  than  have  it  dragged  from  my  soul  by 
some  Third-Degree  process,  I  take  opportunity  by  the  fore 
lock  and  drag  it  out  of  my  own  soul;  though  I  know  not 
why  I  should,  since  I  alone  know  the  secret,  save  that  I  am 
inherently  honest.  Yet,  being  so,  I  must  admit  that  until 
now  I  had  meant  never  to  reveal  this  dark  secret.  Allans! 

It  so  happened  that  in  this  village  by  the  sounding  sea 
there  had  drifted  a  number  of  practitioners  of  one  art  or  an 
other — you  know  the  furtive  way  of  our  kind! — an  etcher, 
an  engraver,  a  miniature  painter,  a  pen  artist,  a  poet,  an 
opera  singer,  a  composer,  a  suspected  bigamist,  and  last  and 
best  in  my  life,  an  angelic  old  lady  who  edited  a  magazine 
on  cookery.  I  have  called  this  little  old  lady  angelic  because 
if  there  are  crowns  and  harps  about  The  Throne  she  is  there 
with  hers.  Now,  this  angelic  old  lady  had  taken  to  drop 
ping  into  my  well  to  cackle  a  few  cheerful  words  which 
might  shame  the  lazy  sick  man  out  of  his  bed  and  into  the 
sunshine  and  the  rain.  The  words  are  her  own.  I  plead 
non  vult  contendere.  And,  to  the  surprise  of  the  sea-doctors 
and  myself,  she  was  doing  it! 

Well,  on  one  of  these  angel-visits,  coming  into  the  well 
suddenly,  she  surprised  me  with  the  typewriter  (machine) 
on  my  stomach  aforesaid,  the  floor  strewn  with  the  sheets 
of  manila,  (then  twice  used)  which  the  keys  in  a  fine  frenzy 


148  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

rolling  had  madly  flung  off.  She  laughed — indeed,  she  near 
ly  laughed  herself  to  Kingdom-Come,  for  she  was  as  frail 
as  a  bird — then  she  took  the  typewriter  off  my  stomach  that 
I  might  also  laugh,  and  finally  picked  up  and  arranged  per 
page  the  twice-used  manila,  while  I  quailed  in  fear  of  the 
inevitable. 

"But — Good  Lord,"  she  screamed,  "you're  not  writing  a 
story — not  you?" 

"Y-yes,"  I  admitted,  sheepishly.  "The  sea-doctors  told 
me  to  think  of  something  different — and — and  this  is  it — 
don't  you  think?  Of  course,  it's  nothing  like  Chitty  on 
Contracts,  but — " 

Meanwhile  I  was  cunningly  trying  to  get  the  twice-used 
manila  away  from  her.  But  she  had  caught  a  phrase  or  two 
and  she  threatened  me  with  the  destruction  of  all  she  held 
unless  I  should  promise  to  send  her  the  whole.  Well — I 
was  a  sick-a-bed-chap — and  I  promised.  For  if  I  had  risen 
to  grapple  with  her  I  would  have  ruptured  my  diaphragm — 
or  something.  (The  Sea-Doctors!) 

So,  being  an  honest  gentleman,  as  abovesaid,  I  sent  her 
the  manila  when  it  was  all  used  up  and  the  story  had  to 
stop,  and  in  a  couple  of  hours  she  came  running  across  the 
lots  with  the  tears  running  across  her  face  crying  as  she 
approached  the  well : 

"Oh,  my  dear,  my  dear,  you  have  created  a  masterpiece. 
Forgive  me  for  laughing,  and  I'll  forgive  you  the  type 
writer — where  it  was — and  never,  never  tell!" 

And  she  never  did. 

Now,  perhaps  strangely  enough  to  you  who  are  case- 
hardened  authors  prepense,  this  business  of  a  masterpiece 
made  me  peevish.  For  I  thought  lightly  enough  of  literary 
masterpieces  then.  Law  was  the  perfection  of  reason. 
(Blkstn  II,  7.)  What  could  be  greater  than  that? 

"My  dear  friend,"  said  I  to  the  angelic  old  lady — for  I 
was  getting  better — and  more  cocky  than  better — "there 
is  only  one  masterpiece,  and  that  is  Coke  upon  Littleton. 
And  the  only  other  I  should  wish  to  write  is  another  volume 
of  Chitty."  I  really  said  that. 


JOHN    LUTHER   LONG  149 

"Stop  your  nonsense,"  cried  the  dear  old  lady,  "and  get 
out  of  bed.  You're  alive.  Send  this  to  the  best  magazine 
in  America — the  land  of  best  magazines."  And  she  seemed 
to  think  that  this  was  The  Century,  and  not  her  own  journal 
of  cookery. 

Now,  this  beautiful  old  lady  was  terrible  both  in  her 
wrath  and  her  joy  and,  since  you  know  that  she  bullied  me 
into  showing  her  my  secret  story,  you  will  not  be  surprised 
to  learn  that  I  was  frightened  into  promising  to  do  as  she 
commanded.  However,  I  sneaked  on  her  for  a  day  or  two, 
and  thereby  hangs  the  worst  of  this  sorry  tale.  She  again 
dashed  across  the  sand-lots,  this  time  madly  waving  a  copy 
of  the  New  York  Herald. 

"Wire  immediately,"  she  cried,  en  route,  "and  get  that 
story  back!" 

"It  hasn't  gone — yet,"  I  confessed,  meekly,  preparing  for 
trouble. 

"Thank  God!"  she  said,  and  breathlessly  disclosed  that 
the  Herald  she  held  in  her  hand  offered  a  prize  of  ten  thou 
sand  dollars  for  stories,  and  she  left  me  no  doubt  about 
what  direction  that  ten  thousand  would  take  after  "Madame 
Butterfly"  reached  the  Herald  office. 

Well — peccavi!  There  had  been  doctors'  bills — and 
nurses'  bills — and  apothecaries'  bills—  and  masseurs'  bills — 
and  no  clients  for  many  a  long  month — and  ten  thousand 
dollars  looked  sweet  and  glorious.  So  I  sent  the  manuscript 
to  the  Herald  (under  a  name  which  I  continue  to  keep 
secret,  unless  the  Authors'  League  shall  order  its  revelation) 
and  almost  immediately,  in  a  minute  it  seemed,  it  returned 
to  me,  like  the  dove  to  the  good  old  ark,  with  the  most 
beautifully  printed  slip  I  have  ever  seen — the  first  of  'em, 
in  fact!  It  was  yellow  with  real  gold  borders  and  it  spent 
most  of  its  time  detailing  the  Editors'  distress  that  my  story 
did  not  precisely  please  'em,  and  casually  announced  that  the 
ten  thousand  dollars  had  been  sent  to  Mary  Wilkins  for  her 
story  called  "The  Long  Arm." 

"Sic  transit  gloria,  etc.,"  said  I. 


150  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

"Sic  nothing!"  shrieked  my  angelic  old  friend,  almost 
bloody  in  her  wrath.  "We'll  show  'em!" 

"Let's!"  agreed  I,  gaily,  and  smiled  and  smiled  and  was 
a  villain  still.  For  that  day  I  had  walked  ten  steps  in  God's 
own  sunlight.  And  I  was  clothed — in  regular  trousers,  etc. 
— and  in  my  right  mind.  What  cared  I  for  "Madame  But 
terfly"  now?  She  had  served  as  the  different  thing  and  I 
was  through  with  her.  For  me  again  began  to  loom  glo 
riously  the  forum  and  battles,  and  good  old  stare  decisis — 
the  Great  Game ! 

"They're  not  editors — they're  street-sweepers — "  The 
dear  old  lady  was  firing  a  Parthian  arrow  after  the  edi 
tors! — "and  when  this  has  been  heard  around  the  world 
I'll  send  'em  a  copy!  Off  to  The  Century  with  it!" 

Well — I  sent  it  to  The  Century,  with  a  singular  lack  of 
interest.  I  was  getting  well.  And,  perhaps,  the  rest  you 
know — or  guess. 

But  my  angelic  old  friend  never  sent  a  copy  to  those  edi 
tors,  for  she  went  away  to  the  Lotus  Fields.  And  I  never 
did — because  I  was  kept  busy,  for  some  time,  palming  off 
on  other  editors  stories  "just  like  Madame  Butterfly" — and 
because  I  was  so  thankful  that  they  never  gave  me  that  ten 
thousand  dollars. 

But  I  have  not  yet  got  back  to  the  forum  and  stare  decisis. 

I  should  like  to  tell  you  of  the  friends  the  story  brought 
me  in  all  lands  and  of  the  enemies  in  our  own — of  two  naval 
officers  from  different  coasts  each  of  whom  wanted  to  shoot 
the  Long  who  had  smirched  the  American  Navy — if  he  could 
be  found  by  the  three  of  us;  of  how  little  there  is  in  the  story 
to  deserve  the  affection  with  which  it  is  received  save  the  ac 
cident  of  illness  which  gave  it  the  humanity  to  which  the 
Great  Heart  always  responds — and  many  another  thing, 
had  I  not  already  exceeded  the  measure  set  for  me. 

So,  Gomen  nasai.     Oitoma  itashimasho. 


GERTRUDE   LYNCH  151 

GERTRUDE  LYNCH 

Several  years  ago  a  remarkable  story  appeared  in  a  peri 
odical,  which  never  adorned  a  news-stand.  I  forget  the 
title  of  the  tale  but  the  publication  was  called  Gertie's 
Weekly,  after  its  owner,  founder  and  business  manager. 
Contributions  for  this  were  stuck  through  a  slit  in  a  wooden 
box  nailed  to  the  door  of  a  greenhouse,  belonging  to  a 
henchchild  like  myself  dallying  in  the  mature  twelves,  at 
which  age  I  believe  genius  must  show  its  existence. 

Few  of  these  manuscripts  ever  saw  the  light.  I  preferred 
my  own  sparkling  dramas  having,  even  at  that  early  age,  a 
presentiment  of  editorial  functions.  However,  with  a  sweet 
smile,  I  always  thanked  the  contributors  and  begged  them 
for  more.  We  didn't  have  rejection  slips  then,  we  were 
only  in  two  syllables.  Paper  and  ink  were  plentiful,  which 
accounted  for  the  size  of  the  publication ;  and  not  having  to 
save  three  quarters  of  the  space  plus  for  advertisements,  in 
spiration  was  allowed  to  burn  itself  to  a  cinder,  and  scraps 
could  always  be  pinned  on  when  I  thought  of  another  chap 
ter. 

It  was  decided  in  family  conclave  that  Gertie's  Weekly 
interfered  with  Gertie's  studies  and  the  periodical  was  first 
censored,  then  suppressed.  So  went  out  another  beacon  that 
might  have  steered  the  bark  of  twentieth  century  literature 
safely  to  port ! 

After  this  came  an  interlude  when  my  writing  was  done 
behind  closed  doors  and  I  literally  burned  the  midnight  oil. 
I  did  not  dare  send  the  stories  out — one  of  them  might  re 
turn — of  course,  by  accident;  but  to  have  even  that  solitary 
one  come  back  would  subject  me  to  the  ridicule  of  a  small 
town  where  whatever  the  postmaster  knew  everybody  knew 
— and  bulky  manuscripts  with  postage  to  pay  shrieked  their 
errand  aloud  to  the  four  winds  of  heaven.  These  stories 
were,  of  course — as  I  was  an  extremely  cheerful  young  per 
son — filled  with  morbid  love  affairs,  lovely  heroines  com 
mitted  suicide  or  simply  pined  away,  when  all  who  had 
made  them  suffer  came  and  wept  over  their  coffins.  My 


152  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

waste-paper  basket  bulged  with  them  until  a  rent  came  in 
its  wicker  sides,  which  in  certain  flickering  lights  looked  like 
the  malicious  grin  on  a  flat,  pale  face.  It  haunts  me  yet. 

When  the  country  mouse  came  to  the  city — and  I  have 
been  an  urban  of  the  urbanites  ever  since,  my  timidity 
changed  to  rashness.  I  developed  a  Manhattan  hide.  I 
actually  posted  my  stories  and  when  they  came  back  talked 
loudly  for  the  landlady's  benefit  of  impatient  editors  who 
could  not  wait  for  proofsheets. 

The  first  story  accepted  was  called  "The  Story  of  a 
Tenor  Voice."  It  was  psychoanalytic  to  a  degree — I  can 
not  say  to  what  degree,  for  I  didn't  know  there  was  such  a 
thing  as  psychoanalysis.  The  editor  wrote  me  a  fervent 
letter  and  seemed  terribly  ashamed  to  offer  thirty  dollars. 
It  seemed  a  tremendous  sum  to  me  but  I  had  grown  wary 
and  accepted  it  condescendingly.  Then,  for  several  weeks, 
I  stopped  writing  to  spend  it — not  in  reality  but  in  imagi 
nation. 

The  story  appeared.     The  check  did  not. 

After  waiting  a  reasonable  time,  considering  my  impa 
tience,  I  wrote  a  nice  little  note,  telling  the  editor  that  the 
check  had  gone  astray.  I  received  a  newspaper  clipping  in 
which  it  was  stated  that  the  magazine  had  suspended. 

About  this  time  I  submitted  a  story  to  a  literary  agent 
who  advertised  to  "read  and  advise  for  five  dollars."  She 
advised  me  to  send  it  to  The  Atlantic  Monthly.  I  did. 

Then  the  doctor  prescribed  iron  and  I  think  the  iron  en 
tered  my  soul,  judging  from  the  plots  and  endings  of  several 
subsequent  stories. 

For  I  kept  on  writing,  which  shows  that  I  really  "belong" ; 
and,  following  the  demise  of  the  magazine  in  which  "The 
Story  of  a  Tenor  Voice"  appeared,  I  assisted  in  the  literary 
obsequies  of  several  periodicals  which,  soon  after  publishing 
my  effusions,  quietly  passed  on.  They  never  paid  before 
they  died. 

I  also  hold  the  speed  record  for  returned  manuscripts. 
One  of  mine,  illustrated  profusely  by  an  artist  friend,  and 


GERTRUDE    LYNCH  153 

sent  to  a  well-known  publishing  house  down  town,  was  re 
turned  by  messenger  and  reached  home  before  we  did. 

When  I  saw  "A  Kiss  for  Cinderella"  on  its  opening  night 
I  remembered  that  one  of  my  earliest  stories  was  founded 
on  an  episode  similar  to  one  in  the  play,  only  my  New  Eng 
land  woman  exacted  a  dollar  apiece  for  her  opinions,  while 
Cinderella  was  satisfied  with  a  penny.  I  leave  you  to  judge 
the  respective  values  of  the  stories  by  that.  Nor  do  I  accuse 
Sir  James  Barrie  of  plagiarism.  Where  there  is  so  much 
gratuitous  advice  in  the  world,  it  is  strange  that  others  have 
not  made  it  a  salable  commodity. 

The  very  editor  to  whom  I  sold  "Aunt  Matilda's  Opin 
ions,"  who  was  the  head  of  a  fiction  syndicate,  was  generous 
in  this  respect.  He  talked  with  me  a  long  time  about  my 
ambitions  and  then  advised  me  to  change  them.  The  editor 
of  a  Sunday  newspaper  for  whom  I  wrote  interviews  and 
special  articles  for  eight  years  once  admired  a  hat  I  wore. 
When  I  told  him  I  had  trimmed  it,  he  asked  me  why  I  didn't 
keep  on  trimming  hats.  He  thought  I  was  clever  at  it. 

There  was  no  explosive  breaking  into  print  in  my  case. 
If  you  knock  at  a  door  long  and  hard  enough  you  will  finally 
get  in,  if  only  to  stop  your  noise.  Sometimes  the  door  opens 
only  a  crack  and  you  have  to  use  your  foot  as  a  wedge.  I 
have  often  held  my  foot  in  a  crack. 

The  years  between  these  early  triumphs  and  the  present 
have  been  filled  with  work  of  all  sorts — books,  stories,  spe 
cials,  editorials,  reviews.  I  have  attempted  only  a  modest 
one-act  play — but  I  have  hopes.  The  literary  calendar  has 
shown  rain  and  sun,  snow  and  sleet,  heat  and  cold,  success 
and  failure,  triumph  and  despair,  hopes  and  fears.  In  this 
I  differ  from  none  of  my  clan,  and  the  value  of  the  empha 
sis  of  these  revelations  I  am  sure  is  that  we  like  to  know 
that  we  are  all  playing  the  same  game  and  playing  it  like 
sportsmen  to  the  best  of  our  ability. 

The  hardest,  most  thrilling  and  least  satisfying  of  my 
work,  from  the  literary  standpoint,  was  my  war  work  as 
representative  of  "The  Vigilantes,"  a  syndicate  of  artists 


154  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

and  authors  who  gave  the  products  of  pen  and  brush  to 
the  Cause. 

I  went  from  trench  village  to  tango  town,  from  death  and 
destruction  of  the  hospitals  to  the  gaieties  of  the  ports  and 
leave  areas.  The  joy-writers  who  went  over  after  the 
armistice  did  the  best  war  writing,  as  a  class,  for  they  did  not 
get  near  enough  to  spoil  their  perspectives.  But  I  am  sure 
that  no  one  who  was  "in  it"  would  be  without  their  memory 
of  their  special  thrills  and  no  word  of  publisher  and  editor 
that  the  public  is  not  interested  in  war  stories  can  convince 
us  that  they  are  right  in  submitting  to  its  decree  and  not 
building  up  a  full  and  splendid  war  literature  such  as  other 
countries  have. 

There  is  a  Browning  poem — one,  you  remember,  in  which 
the  making  of  a  man's  soul  is  likened  to  the  making  of  a 
flute — the  reed  is  torn  from  the  bank,  the  pith  is  dug  out, 
the  rough  bark  is  hacked  and  hewed.  Then  it  is  ready  for 
the  music.  So  the  god  Pan  plays,  and, 

"The  sun  on  the  hill  forgot  to  die, 
And  the  lilies  revived,  and  the  dragon-fly 
Came  back  to  dream  on  the  river — " 

Few  of  us  sing  a  song  so  wonderful  that  even  nature 
listens,  that  the  sun  hesitates  to  go,  that  the  dying  rose  re- 
blooms,  that  the  gauze-winged  insect  returns  to  its  beau 
tiful  visions — few  of  us,  indeed.  But  how  fortunate  to  be 
of  the  many  from  whom  the  few  are  chosen,  a  member  of 
the  most  glorious  profession  in  the  world! 

PETER  CLARK  MACFARLANE 

It  was  eternities  ago,  when  Los  Angeles  was  a  small  town. 
My  home  was  in   a  little  white  cottage  far  over  on 
Boyle   Heights.     My  work  was  in  a  five-story  squat 
brick  building — it  looks  squat  now — at  the  corner  of  Broad 
way  and  Third   Street,   then   well   out   toward   the   weed 
patches  and  the  boom-stake  lots  of  '87.    From  the  Bradbury 
Block  to  the  rounded  bosom  of  Boyle  Heights  ran  one  leg 


PETER    CLARK    MACFARLANE  15$ 

of  a  system  of  cable  street  railroad;  but,  to  save  carfare,  I 
used  to  watch  the  little  crablike  dummy  and  its  trailer  load 
of  human  freight  go  sailing  by;  I  walked. 

Walking  three  miles  in  the  morning  to  work,  carrying 
one's  luncheon,  and  walking  three  miles  back  at  night  hun 
gry  to  one's  dinner,  there  is  much  time  for  thought,  for 
dreams  and  for  idle  speculations. 

In  one  of  the  idlest  of  these  dreams  there  came  to  me  the 
notion  that  I  could  be  an  author,  that  I  could  build  fiction 
character,  slowly,  solidly,  trait  by  trait,  until  I  got  the  hue 
of  life  upon  its  cheek  and  that,  creator-like,  e'en  I  might 
breathe  the  breath  of  vital  action  into  its  lungs.  Yes;  I 
perceived  that  I  could  do  it.  I  could  be  a  Hugo  or  a  Dick 
ens.  Impartially  I  appraised  my  talents  and  unblushingly 
admitted  they  were  sufficient. 

But  the  career  of  a  novelist  did  not  appeal  to  me  particu 
larly.  It  was  my  ultimate  intention  at  that  time  to  be  Presi 
dent  of  the  United  States  at  about  the  age  at  which  I  find 
myself  writing  these  lines,  and  to  be  a  mere  Balzac  or  Tark- 
ington — not  that  I  had  heard  of  Tark  twenty-six  years  ago- 
had  no  allure.  So  I  dismissed  the  idea.  I  bade  the  vision  flit. 
As  to  the  foundling  amiable  pup  that  unwelcome  trails  the 
heel,  I  said:  "Begone!  'S-s-s-st!" 

But,  after  a  true  Freudian  principle,  this  dream  disguised 
itself  and  crept  back  upon  me  unrecognized.  All  day  I  wrote 
with  the  Remington  No.  2,  being  a  stenographer  in  a  rail 
road  office ;  but  now  my  fingers  began  to  feel  an  itch  to  write 
with  the  pen,  with  the  pencil,  with  anything,  but  to  write! 
It  was  an  impulse  to  Spencerian  chirography — no  particu 
lar  words,  just  chirography,  just  aimless  capital  letters  on 
the  borders  of  the  newspaper  pages,  on  the  corners  of  calen 
dars,  on,  when  they  were  clean  enough  to  show  a  black 
mark,  the  edges  of  my  cuffs. 

But  chirography  is  the  worst  thing  I  do,  even  now  when 
the  years  have  disclosed  so  many  things  that  I  do  badly; 
hence,  this  persistent  practice  of  chirography  for  chirogra- 
phy's  sake  must  early  have  demonstrated  its  own  futility; 
notwithstanding  which  that  deceptive  Freudian  complex 


156  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

kept  me  scribbling — aimlessly,  restlessly,  resultlessly  until 
one  certain  Sunday  afternoon.  Upon  the  table — dining 
table  at  certain  hours  of  the  day,  family  reading,  social  and 
sewing  table  at  other  hours — upon  the  table  chanced  to  lie  a 
largest  size  official  reporter's  note  book,  into  which  I  had 
the  habit  of  tracing  profound  criticisms  of  the  political  arti 
cles  I  read — part  of  my  preparation  for  the  Presidency,  you 
see. 

This  note  book  naturally  enough  got  itself  into  my  hand, 
and  just  for  matter  to  write,  I  fell  to  putting  sentences 
together  about  a  raccoon  hunt  I  had  enjoyed  in  timber  con 
tiguous  to  the  State  University  of  Florida,  then  located  at 
Lake  City.  Now,  perhaps  because  a  raccoon  hunt  perforce 
takes  place  at  night,  there  is  much  that  is  dramatic  about 
it,  with  scenes  that  impress  the  memory  and  later  may 
stimulate  the  imagination.  Moreover,  there  had  really  been 
a  succession  of  exciting  events  on  that  particular  hunt — 
events  that  illustrated  the  characters  of  dogs  and  raccoons 
and  colored  people  and  poor  white  trash  and  big-eyed  imma 
ture  university  students,  and  I  began  presently  to  be  inter 
ested  more  in  what  I  wrote  than  in  how  I  wrote,  which  was 
the  dastardly  success  of  the  Freudian  deception.  From  a 
practice  Marathon  in  penmanship  the  thing  began  to  be 
an  essay  in  composition. 

Some  fifteen  or  eighteen  years  before,  either  Scribners'  or 
The  Eclectic  had  published  a  series  of  stories  dealing  with 
country  sports  in  the  South,  penned  by  some  master  of  a 
facile  and  a  vivid  style  whose  name  no  longer  lives  to  be 
done  a  doubtful  honor  here;  but  these  stories,  found  in  the 
bound  volumes  of  the  magazine,  had  relieved  the  boredom 
of  many  a  rainy  day  in  boyhood.  Now  they  leaped  into  my 
mind  and  became  my  model. 

The  paper  was  just  rough  enough  to  take  the  lead  nicely, 
the  pencil  soft,  and  the  sentences  rolled  on  and  on. 

So,  also,  did  the  incidents  of  that  coon  hunt;  they  grew 
more  and  more  exciting.  Then,  all  at  once,  they  petered 
out,  like  a  baying  dog  who,  suddenly  cowed,  curls  tail  be 
tween  legs  and  departs  for  under  the  house.  There  were 


PETER   CLARK   MACFARLANE  157 

not  enough  of  them  to  make  a  story  like  the  old  Scribner 
stories.  They  had  a  sequence  but  no  inevitableness  and  no 
satisfying  climax.  Therefore,  because  I  felt  the  challenge 
to  go  on  and  make  a  finish,  imagination  was  called  upon  to 
supply  the  deficiency  of  material  and  it  did  its  humble  best. 
It  supplied,  also,  coherence,  objective,  obstacle,  suspense  and 
the  semblance  of  a  plot. 

I  got  real  interested  in  that  story;  but  at  the  finish  was 
ashamed  for  the  canine  hero  I  had  made  out  of  one  of  the 
laziest,  most  cowardly,  worthless  hounds  that  ever  sucked 
an  egg;  ashamed,  too,  of  the  hero  I  made  of  myself,  and  of 
the  tremendous  total  of  falsehoods  with  which  I  had  weakly 
embellished  this  originally  honest  tale  in  order  to  finish  with 
a  fiction  flourish. 

But,  when  I  read  it  aloud,  much  neighbor  hair  rose  on 
end  and  suburban  eyes  gaped  wondrously. 

I  was  awed,  too,  to  discover  that  these  listeners  knew 
not  which  parts  were  honest  truth  and  which  the  libellous 
fiction ;  nor  cared,  since  they  were  so  vastly  intrigued  by  the 
mixture,  which,  as  they  opined,  was  the  chief  end  of  liter 
ature,  anyhow.  It  was  generally  allowed  that  I  ought  to 
send  that  "piece"  to  The  Century  or  The  Atlantic  Monthly 
or  The  Christian  Endeavor  World. 

But  the  author  had  another  idea.  The  Los  Angeles 
Times  was  then  a  smaller  paper  than  it  is  now  and  more 
saturated  through  and  through  with  the  personality  of  its 
creator,  Harrison  Gray  Otis — rest  his  restless,  irascible 
soul!  And  on  certain  pages  of  its  Sunday  Supplement  it 
boasted  and  made  display  of  the  California  literary  product, 
even  as  it  boasted  of  the  citrus  product.  To  this  depart 
ment  I  committed  through  the  mails  my  manuscript. 

I  waited  months  and  months  to  hear  from  that  precious 
effusion.  I  never  heard.  Several  times  I  plucked  up  cour 
age  to  walk  at  noontimes  down  Broadway  to  the  Times 
building  and  to  the  very  first  step  of  the  stairs  that  led  up 
ward  to  a  bearding  of  the  thistle-tempered  editor  in  his  den. 
But  my  courage  always  failed  me.  Perhaps  there  was  logic 
in  the  failure.  While  the  manuscript  was  unreported  on, 


158  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

I  had  a  hope — however  faint,  a  hope — and  in  those  days 
hope  was  rare  and  the  faintest  one  was  succulent.  Once  I 
met  the  editor,  that  hope  would  be  dispelled,  for  he  would 
only  tell  me  that  my  precious  pages  had  gone  into  the  incin 
erator  months  before. 

Still,  therefore,  I  had  my  hope;  but  thai  had  faded  to  a 
hallowed  memory  when,  one  Lord's  Day  morning,  I  reclined 
upon  an  old  blue  denim  lounge  and  read  the  Sunday  Times. 

Thumbing  casually  through  the  literary  section,  my  eye 
was  offended  by  two  or  three  disfigurements  upon  the  solid 
page  before  me.  They  were  outline  drawings  of  the  most 
impossible  of  negro  characters.  As  to  drawing,  they  were  the 
worst  I  have  ever  looked  upon,  grotesque,  proportionless, 
pithecanthropic,  with  spots  of  white  paper  for  eyeballs.  I 
laughed  at  their  ridiculousness.  In  my  superior  knowledge 
of  the  plantation  darkey  I  was  scorning  the  man  who  could 
have  so  pictured  them — when  my  eye  was  struck  with  the 
legend  beneath  the  first  of  these  illustrative  absurdities. 

It  had  a  familiar  look.  It  was  in  quotations.  I  read  it 
and  dynamite  went  off  in  my  brain.  It  was  a  quotation 
from  my  story! 

My  eyes  flew  to  the  top  of  the  page  and  lo,  my  name  was 
there!  It  was  my  story — smeared  all  over  the  page.  In  an 
instant  joy  was  smeared  all  over  my  face  like  jam.  I  lifted 
shrill,  yipping  yells  which  must  have  alarmed  the  neighbors 
and  confirmed  them  in  their  growing  suspicion  that  I  was 
a  "nut."  How  right  they  were  I  never  suspected  then. 

My  good  wife  came  running  to  me  with  dough  upon  her 
hands  from  the  making  the  crust  of  the  humble  meat  pie 
which  was  to  be  our  Sunday  dinner.  I  showed  her  the  page, 
with  my  name  at  the  top,  and  with  some  perfectly  wonderful 
words  at  the  bottom:  "From  a  New  Contributor."  We 
fell  into  each  other's  arms.  Her  doughy  fingers  fondled  my 
hair,  searching  out  bumps  and  deciding  which  ones  she  and 
adversity  had  given  me,  and  which  one  represented  the 
God-given  genius  of  authorship. 

I  called  my  three-year-old  and  showed  the  page  to  her  and 
made  the  glorious  explanation.  She  received  it  gravely. 


PETER    CLARK    MACFARLANE  159 

"Papa's  'tory,"  she  said  contentedly,  and  smoothed  her  small 
gingham  apron  as  with  a  new  sense  of  dignity  since  author 
ship  was  in  her  paternity. 

I  showed  it  to  my  drooling  yearling  and  he  drooled  and 
grunted,  coaxing  me  to  take  him  and  toss  him  and  let  news 
papers  go  hang. 

All  day  long  I  lay  and  rolled  to  and  fro  upon  the  old 
blue  denim  couch  in  succeeding  frenzies  of  delight.  All 
week  I  waited  breathless  for  a  check.  By  the  succeeding 
Saturday  desperation  had  succeeded  joy.  I  bearded  the 
jaguar.  He  smiled  at  me  benignly — some  one  who  knew 
the  editor's  reputation  will  not  believe  he  smiled — but  he 
did,  and  gave  me  an  order  on  the  business  office  for  eleven 
dollars.  The  mischief  was  done. 

That  was  my  maiden  effort.  It  may  have  been  all  a  ter 
rible  mistake.  The  record  is  not  yet  complete. 


HAROLD  MACGRATH 

My  first  literary  effort  was  a  short  story  in  competition 
for  a  prize  of  five  dollars  offered  by  my  high-school 
magazine.  Le'me  see;  I  must  have  been  fourteen. 
I  have  forgotten  who  won  that  five;  I  know  I  didn't. 

My  father  read  my  story  before  I  submitted  it.  It  was 
just  before  the  family — three  of  us — sat  down  to  the  eve 
ning  meal.  He  said  it  was  great  stuff:  four  hundred  words 
to  kill  off  three  hundred  Indians,  and  one  hundred  words 
describing  the  funeral.  That  was  the  beginning  of  twenty- 
odd  years  of  crime! 

I  did  not  have  to  peddle  my  first  story.  It  did  not  go  from 
office  to  office.  I  didn't  have  any  heartaches.  Bang!  and 
the  thing  was  done. 

Luck?  No,  sir.  Back  of  what  looks  like  luck  were  ten 
years  of  strenuous  newspaper  work.  And  when  I  say  work 
I  mean  it.  Since  eighteen  I  have  been  partially  deaf;  and 
to  hang  on  in  the  newspaper  game  with  impedimenta  of  that 
order!  Why,  I  was  always  inventing  some  new  stunt  to 


160  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

make  myself  necessary.  Without  realizing  it,  I  was  train 
ing  my  imagination  for  today ! 

One  night,  after  we'd  had  a  jolly  supper,  a  friend  and 
myself  sat  "gassing"  about  books.  I  told  him  I  had  a  story 
in  my  head.  He  asked  for  it.  I  related  it  in  synopsis;  and 
he  waxed  enthusiastic. 

"Write  it!" 

"Oh,  but  I  haven't  got  the  time." 

"Make  time!" 

I  started  "Arms  and  the  Woman"  at  one  o'clock  A.  M., 
when  I  got  home.  I  finished  it  within  two  months.  I  sold 
it  to  McClure's  Syndicate  for  the  magnificent  sum  of  two 
hundred  dollars — which  was  a  lot  of  money  in  those  days. 
Doubleday,  McClure  Co.  liked  the  story  well  enough  to  put 
it  between  covers.  And  that's  all  there  is  to  it. 

My  advice  to  all  those  who  wish  to  write  is,  broil  a  little 
while  on  the  grill  of  newspaper  work.  You  learn  brevity, 
directness;  you  learn  to  make  words  count;  you  learn  the 
art  of  holding  your  reader  in  suspense.  And  over  and  above 
that,  you  have  seen  life,  on  the  mounts  and  in  the  pits. 

PERCY  MACKAYE 

I     remember — the  month  was  May. 
That  was  auspicious  to  start  with. 
We  were  "camping  in,"  as  we  called  it,  in  my  aunt's 
country  cottage. 

I  remember — it  was  past  noon  of  a  faultless  day.  After 
infinite  procrastinations,  Spring  at  last  had  come — cloudless, 
golden,  singing.  In  the  lawn  by  the  little  cottage  dande 
lions  caroused,  still  unprohibited  by  the  lawn-mower.  Car 
dinal  grosbeaks  and  indigo  birds  carolled  in  the  apple  trees 
just  budding  a  deep  red.  Across  the  road  in  the  field,  on 
the  gold-green  tide  of  the  new  grass,  quaker-ladies  gleamed 
like  crests  of  pale  gray  foam;  and  beyond  the  miles  of  low 
hills  smouldering  into  woodland  bloom,  the  white  church 
spires  of  Groton  glinted  serene. 


PERCY  MACKAYE  i6i 

Serene,  too,  was  the  brown  belfry  of  the  revolutionary 
church,  nestled  nearby  among  the  Shirley  maple-tops.  In 
deed,  all  the  world  was  serene,  idyllic,  new-born — only — 
the  dishes  were  unwashed. 

Yet,  it  was  not  merely  Spring. 

I  recall  as  well  how  the  season  conspired  with  the  rising 
sap  of  youth  to  render  a  maiden  effort  inevitable.  I  was 
myself  in  my  fifteenth  year.  The  excellent  noon  dinner 
cooked  by  that  adept  in  all  Yankee  ambrosias,  my  Aunt 
Sadie,  was  hardly  yet  a  memory ;  the  aroma  of  sweet  pickles 
and  the  lingering  savor  of  deep-dish  apple  pie  (last  fruition 
of  winter-cellared  Baldwins)  still  quickened  my  tongue 
with  retrospections,  so  that  its  utterances  became  atavistic, 
as  only  the  tongue  of  Fourteen  knows  how  to  be.  So  it  re 
curred  to  the  Spring-time  of  our  Pilgrim  fathers : 

"When  the  leaf-buds  of  the  oak  are  as  large  as  the 
ears  of  the  field  mouse,  then  (I  quoted) — then  is  come 
the  hour  for  the  planting  of  corn"  (and  the  composing 
of  corn-ballads!). 

And  I  gazed  at  our  budding  oak-tree;  and  verily  the  hour 
had  come — but  there  were  the  dishes  unwashed  and  my 
aunt  was  waiting.  Unnumbered  times  she  had  washed  them 
but  this  was  my  disciplinary  turn,  for  the  other  children 
having  done  their  shifts  stood  eager  and  waiting  to  watch 
mine. 

In  Springs  of  earlier  years,  "efforts" — embryonic,  amor 
phous,  half-articulate — had  stirred  the  roots  of  my  tongue 
and  choked  by  childish  utterance;  but  none  had  emerged 
till  now  which  might  deserve  the  full-blown,  vernal  name  of 
"maiden."  Perhaps  it  was  because  till  now  the  serene  con 
junction  of  May  and  immaturity  had  never  been  jarred  by 
counter-struggles  of  the  soul;  but  now  the  needful  inocula 
tion  of  "impending  fate"  had  precipitated  in  my  blood  a 
virus-fever  of  "dramatic  conflict"  which  could  have  but  one 
tragic  denouement — a  maiden  utterance  in  verse. 

For  at  that  moment,  though  all  heaven's  gate  was  being 
stormed  by  battalions  of  bobolinks,  transmuted  to  the  imagi- 


162  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

nary  larks  of  Avon's  bard,  yet  there  were  the  unwashed 
dishes  and  my  aunt  still  waiting  towel  in  hand  ready  to  wipe 
them,  but  only  to  the  ritual  of  my  washing.  Moreover, 
there  were  the  expectant  eyes  of  my  brethren,  brimming 
with  an  awful  joy. 

And  so  it  befell  that  in  May  of  my  fifteenth  year—from 
the  throes  of  a  post-prandial  conflict  between  Pan  and  dish- 
pan — my  maiden  sonnet  was  born. 

Publish  it  not  in  Gath  nor  in  the  streets  of  Askalon,  but 
publish  it  now  in  The  Book  of  The  Authors'  League,  for 
the  Fund,  "describing  the  incidents  connected  with  the  pub 
lications  of  the  very  first  literary  work  of  well-known  au 
thors."  For  so  shall  all  "unlucky  authors,  that  seek  to 
secure  their  Second  Serial  Rights  to  Health  and  Happiness" 
take  heart  herewith  in  witnessing  this  very  first  publication 
of  the  very  first  literary  work  of  my  well-known  author 
ship,  after  its  well-deserved  oblivion  of  nine-and-twenty 
years. 

Hie  jacet  the  Maiden  Effort: 

TO  A  DISH-PAN 

O  fallen  pan !     Benighted,  unclassed  pan ! 

Despised  receptacle  of  outcast  dishes! 
Faith,  thou  wast  made  to  be  the  bane  of  man 

And  wash  away  his  soul's  most  hopeful  wishes. 
Is  he  forever  doomed  with  soapy  mop 

To  stand  before  thy  rim  and  rinse  and  wash? 
To  hover  o'er  the  dirty  grayish  slop 

That  round  thy  greasy  sides  doth  swill  and  swash? 
Ah,  soon  will  he  leave  courses  out  of  dinner 

Who  is  obliged  to  wash  his  dishes  after; 
Each  new-born  day  will  find  him  growing  thinner, 

Each  meal-time  less  and  less  inclined  to  laughter. 
But  stop!     More  words  to  thee  my  pen  refuses, 

Then  how  much  more — the  poor,  disgusted  Muses! 


ORISON   SWETT   HARDEN  163 

ORISON  SWETT  MARDEN 

My  struggles  began  when,  a  double  orphan  at  the  age 
of  seven,  I  was  bound  out  by  my  guardian,  suc 
cessively,  in  five  different  families  in  the  backwoods 
of  New  Hampshire.  There  I  began  the  training  and  expe 
rience  in  the  School  of  Hard  Knocks  which  ultimately  led 
to  the  writing  of  my  first  book,  "Pushing  to  the  Front." 

All  the  year  around,  with  the  exception  of  short  periods 
in  winter,  when  I  attended  the  district  school,  I  had  to  work 
very  hard  for  a  bare  living.  Even  when  I  was  nearly  of 
age  I  got  only  thirteen  dollars  a  month  in  summer  and  in 
winter  nothing  but  my  board  and  clothes. 

In  a  very  sparsely  settled  country  twenty-four  miles  from 
the  nearest  railroad  station.  Books  were  very  scarce,  and  I 
saw  few  of  any  kind  outside  the  school  text-books,  until  I 
was  grown  up.  Then,  one  fateful  red-letter  day,  I  happened 
to  get  hold  of  Smiles'  "Self  Help." 

That  day  marked  the  turning  point  in  my  life.  I  read 
and  re-read  the  wonderful  book.  It  was  a  revelation  to  me. 
The  stories  of  poor  boys  climbing  to  the  top  so  inspired  me 
that  I  resolved  to  get  out  of  the  woods,  get  an  education  at 
any  cost,  and  make  something  of  myself. 

Up  to  this  time  my  ambition  had  not  been  stirred,  and  I 
had  not  begun  to  realize  that  I  was  such  an  ignoramus, 
not  having  even  a  decent  common  school  education.  I  never 
dreamed  that  I  could  get  a  college  education  or  that  there 
would  ever  be  any  chance  for  me  to  do  anything  more  than 
make  a  very  poor  living  at  hard  work  as  others  all  about 
me  were  doing. 

But  after  reading  "Self  Help,"  something  kept  saying 
to  me  "There  is  a  chance  for  you,  and  you  can  do  some 
thing  and  amount  to  something."  The  picture  of  Samuel 
Smiles  talking  to  poor  boys,  gathered  from  the  streets  of 
London  in  an  old  shed,  about  success  in  life,  showing  them 
their  possibilities  and  trying  to  arouse  their  ambition  by 
pointing  out  that  though  they  were  poor  and  apparently  had 
no  opportunity,  they  might  become  great  men  even  as  other 


164  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

boys  as  poor  as  they,  had  thrilled  my  imagination.  It  not 
only  awakened  me  to  a  knowledge  of  my  own  possibilities 
but  created  in  me  a  burning  desire  to  develop  them,  with  the 
object  of  one  day  doing  something  that  would  stimulate  and 
encourage  struggling  American  lads  like  myself,  who  had 
no  money,  no  friends  or  relatives,  to  develop  and  make  the 
most  of  all  the  powers  Nature  had  given  them. 

In  fact,  I  resolved  then  to  begin  to  get  together  material 
for  a  book  which  I  hoped  would  some  time  be  to  the  Amer 
ican  boy  what  Smiles'  "Self  Help"  had  been  to  the  English 
boy. 

By  dint  of  extra  hard  work  and  the  most  rigid  economy 
I  managed  to  scrape  together  two  dollars,  every  cent  of  which 
I  spent  for  a  large  blank  note  book.  On  the  opening  page 
I  printed  in  big  letters  the  motto  I  had  adopted :  "Let  every 
occasion  be  a  great  occasion,  for  you  cannot  tell  when  fate 
may  be  taking  your  measure  for  a  larger  place"  ;  and  in  it 
I  planned  to  jot  down  every  thought  and  suggestion  which 
came  to  me  as  material  for  my  dream  book.  Nothing  that 
came  into  my  life  afterward  meant  quite  so  much,  was 
quite  so  precious  to  me  as  that  blank  note  book,  in  which 
was  outlined  the  first  rough  beginnings  of  "Pushing  to  the 
Front." 

Not  yet  being  of  age  when  I  appealed  to  my  guardian  to 
let  me  go  away  somewhere  to  school,  he  objected  very  seri 
ously,  and  threatened  to  post  me  in  the  county  paper  if  I 
attempted  to  leave  where  I  was.  But  in  spite  of  threats  and 
opposition,  dressed  in  my  best  suit,  consisting  of  a  woolen 
shirt,  a  shabby  coat  and  trousers  and  a  pair  of  cowhide 
boots,  I  started  one  day  for  the  Colby  Academy,  New  Lon 
don,  New  Hampshire,  some  fifty  miles  away. 

This  being  my  first  exit  from  the  wilderness,  I  was  sur 
prised  to  find  how  many  well-dressed  boys  and  girls  there 
were  at  the  Academy,  many  of  them  from  the  city,  and  all 
infinitely  further  advanced  in  their  studies  than  I  was.  In 
fact,  I  was  ashamed  to  start  in  where  I  belonged,  which  was 
pretty  far  back  even  in  a  district  school.  But  I  managed  to 
push  ahead,  paying  my  way  by  waiting  on  the  table  in  the 


ORISON    SWETT   MARDEN  165 

students'  boarding  house,  chopping  cord  wood  in  the  woods, 
sawing  wood,  etc.  And  always,  in  reading,  and  in  my  odd 
leisure  moments,  I  was  thinking  of  and  working  on  my 
dream  book,  adding  new  material,  filling  new  note  books, 
from  every  possible  source. 

This  continued  all  the  way  up  from  my  academy  days 
through  my  college  course  and  post-graduate  courses  at 
different  universities,  until  after  receiving  my  degrees  I  went 
to  Kearny,  Nebraska.  There  I  finished  the  manuscript  of 
"Pushing  to  the  Front,"  and  prepared  the  manuscripts  for 
several  other  books. 

Then  came  the  tragedy  which  in  a  few  hours  wiped  out 
all  the  results  of  years  of  hard  work. 

The  hotel  in  which  I  was  living  and  of  which  I  was  pro 
prietor  was  burned  to  the  ground.  Everything  I  had,  in 
cluding  my  precious  manuscripts  and  all  my  valuable  note 
books,  was  destroyed.  Clad  only  in  my  underclothing,  I 
barely  escaped  from  the  building  with  my  life,  being  knocked 
down  the  stairs  from  the  top  floor  by  burning  timbers  from 
the  roof. 

When  I  found  that  every  scratch  of  a  pen,  all  of  my  pre 
cious  note  books,  and  everything  I  had  was  gone,  while  the 
hotel  was  still  smouldering  I  went  down  the  street  and 
bought  a  twenty-five  cent  note  book  in  which  I  began  to 
re-write  whatever  I  could  remember  of  the  lost  manuscripts. 
This  was  done  in  a  room  over  a  livery  stable,  where  I  boarded 
myself. 

While  never  losing  sight  of  my  first  ambition,  up  to  this 
time  I  had  been  a  business  man.  But  after  the  fire  and 
the  terrible  Nebraska  drought  in  which  I  lost  all  of  my  sav 
ings,  nearly  fifty  thousand  dollars,  I  decided  to  give  up  busi 
ness,  return  to  Boston  and  finish  re-writing  the  manuscript 
of  "Pushing  to  the  Front,"  and  try  to  start  The  Success 
Magazine. 

Not  being  familiar  with  publishers'  methods,  when  my 
manuscript  was  completed,  thinking  it  might  take  me  many 
months,  perhaps  a  year,  to  get  a  publisher  to  accept  it,  I 
made  three  copies  and  submitted  one  to  each  of  three  differ- 


166  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

ent  publishing  houses  at  the  same  time — Houghton,  Mifflin 
&  Co.,  T.  Y.  Crowell  Co.,  and  another  Boston  house.  To 
my  great  surprise,  all  three  wanted  the  book.  I  finally  gave 
it  to  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. 

So  doubtful  was  I  of  the  success  of  "Pushing  to  the 
Front"  that  even  after  I  had  signed  a  contract  I  went  to 
the  publishers  and  asked  them  to  let  me  have  the  manuscript 
and  re-write  it.  Mr.  Horace  Scudder,  then  editor  of  The 
Atlantic  Monthly,  who  had  passed  upon  the  manuscript, 
advised  me  not  to  touch  it.  But  even  then  I  was  not  satis 
fied,  and  thought  I  never  again  would  give  a  publisher  such 
a  poor  book. 

It  went  through  twelve  editions  in  the  first  year  of  publi 
cation,  however,  and  has  since  been  translated  into  practi 
cally  all  the  leading  languages  of  the  world.  Mr.  Gladstone 
offered  to  write  the  introduction  to  the  London  edition,  but 
unfortunately  he  died  before  this  was  completed.  "Pushing 
to  the  Front"  has  been  used  for  many  years  as  a  text  book 
in  the  government  schools  of  Japan  and  in  the  schools  of 
many  other  countries.  It  has  probably  gone  through  more 
than  two  hundred  and  fifty  editions,  many  more  than  any 
other  of  my  forty-odd  books. 

My  experience  with  "Pushing  to  the  Front"  convinced 
me  that  no  author  can  really  gauge  his  own  work.  I  would 
have  been  glad  to  sell  the  manuscript  for  a  thousand  dol 
lars.  I  did  sell  the  German  rights  for  a  song,  and  the  Ger 
man  publishers  have  sold  in  the  neighborhood  of  seventy- 
five  thousand  copies. 

GEORGE  MADDEN  MARTIN 

My  maiden  effort  at  story-writing,  if  I  may  put  it  so, 
was  a  quite  young  matron's  effort.     And  I  can  see 
now  that  she  was  younger  even  than  her  years;  or 
than  she  herself  was  aware. 

The  manuscript  when  completed  was  carried  to  her  hus 
band.  The  American  husband  proverbially  is  chivalric;  is 
kind. 


GEORGE    MADDEN    MARTIN  167 

The  dialogue  succeeding,  as  recollected,  went  something 
as  follows;  being  a  plea  on  his  part  for  what  may  be  called 
the  verities;  or  even  the  veri-similitudes. 

"You  are  asking  me  for  an  opinion  given— er — in  ear 
nest?" 

"Certainly;  I  don't  quite  gather  what  you  mean?" 

"No;  I  fancy  not.  To  instance:  You  thus  far  have 
never  been  out  of  your  native  land?" 

"Well ;  I  know  that ;  but  this  is  a  story." 

"You  have  a  reasonably  fair  right  to  assume  that  you 
know  something  about  the  American  Child,  having  been 
one  yourself." 

"But  this  is  a  romance — " 

"You  are  passably  acquainted  with  the  English  language 
as  spoken  in  the  United  States.  You  have  had  in  your  day 
a  few  lessons  in  French,  and  also  in  German.  But  to  my 
knowledge  so  far  as  it  goes,  you  never  heard  spoken  a  word 
of  Spanish,  patois  or  any  other  variety,  in  your  life — " 

"I  bought  myself  a  Spanish-English  dictionary — " 

"—and  so,  I'm  wondering  why,  why — I  say  wondering, 
since  I  don't  profess  to  follow  the  involutions  of  the  creative 
mind — why  with  an  average  lifetime  of  things  to  write  of 
you  do  know  a  modicum  about,  you  center  on  Spanish  chil 
dren  in  an  alien  setting,  speaking  a  patois  that  you  never 
heard." 

Later,  by  a  year  or  two,  I  wondered  this  myself.  The 
story,  however,  by  title,  "Don  Soldier,"  was  accepted  at  its 
first  arriving  place.  I'm  wondering  if  that  editor,  whose 
subsequent  career  proves  him  a  most  discerning  man,  after 
all  these  years,  would  remember  why. 

It  was  a  two-part  serial,  and  brought  for  those  days  a 
very  generous  check.  Was  that  manuscript  accepted  and 
held,  in  the  hope  of  better  things  to  follow? 

It  was  never  published.  Why  ?  The  answer  to  this  makes 
the  story  of  my  maiden  effort. 

The  tale  was  followed  by  others  in  rapid  succession. 
These  going  to  the  same  office,  and  staying  there,  appeared 
promptly  in  print. 


168  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

Then  came  another  nature  of  effort;  a  story  this  was  for 
the  volume  to  be,  at  the  time  of  its  appearance,  called  by 
Frank  Norris,  "The  Epic  of  the  Slate  Pencil,"  and  now 
known  as  "Emmy  Lou."  It  will  be  grasped  from  this, 
Emmy  Lou  being  what  she  is  for  at  least  attempted  verity, 
that  the  marital  adviser  of  the  writer  by  now  had  induced  her 
to  try  her  hand  at  what  she  knew. 

The  consequence  of  this  essay  at  real  life  was — 

Yes;  that  editor  already  referred  to  will  bear  me  out  in 
this.  The  maiden  effort  was  bought  back  by  the  perpetrator 
of  it;  and  to  this  day  has  not  reappeared. 

A  word  as  to  this,  however.  That  story  of  place  and 
creatures  that  never  were  on  land  or  sea  was  accepted  at  its 
first  offering.  And  "A  Little  Feminine  Casabianca,"  the 
story  from  Emmy  Lou,  went  to  and  fro,  poor  dove,  on  the 
face  of  the  waters,  the  fighting  spirit  of  the  writer  being 
aroused;  her  record  being  eleven  temporary  abiding  places. 
Until  she  came  to  rest,  her  sister-flock  of  Emmy  Lou  tales 
following  her,  at  McClure's  Magazine. 

It  might  be  interesting,  in  view  of  this  recital  of  her  pre 
vious  misadventures,  to  know  just  what  this  rejected  child's 
subsequent  sales  have  been.  Myself,  I  find,  when  I  come 
to  think  about  it,  that  I  do  not  know. 

SIDNEY  McCALL 

My  first  book,  "Truth  Dexter,"  was  written  in  Japan 
because  I  was  homesick  for  Alabama:  my  second, 
"The  Breath  of  the  Gods,"  four  years  later  in  Ala 
bama,  because  I  was  homesick  for  Japan. 

This  sentence,  just  achieved,  intrigues  me  with  a  flavor 
as  of  epigrams,  and  a  less  doubtful  quality  of  balance.  Hav 
ing  produced  them,  I  shall  let  well  enough  alone,  and  start 
at  once  on  the  requested  story  of  my  first  published  novel. 

I  am  writing  "first"  advisedly.  I  cannot  use  the  more 
felicitous  term  suggested  by  our  editor  and  call  it  a  "maiden" 
effort,  for  not  only  was  I  a  married  woman  at  the  time,  but 


SIDNEY   McCALL  169 

"Truth  Dexter"  would  never  have  seen  the  light  except 
for  my  husband. 

It  was  Spring-time !  Spring-time  in  Japan !  A  synonym 
for  earthly  paradise! 

I  was  surrounded  with  beauty — comfort — love — with 
everything  desirable,  and  yet  so  wilful  is  this  human  heart 
of  ours  that  sometimes,  in  lonely  moments,  I  would  feel  the 
cold  touch  of  exile  and  would  find  myself  dreaming,  with 
wet  eyes  close  shut,  of  all  my  "home-folks"  in  a  distant  land 
—of  Spring-time  in  the  Alabama  pines. 

I  could  almost  hear  the  tiny  azure  iris  pushing  its  way 
up  through  the  sandy  soil  and  see  at  the  tip  of  red-oak 
saplings,  yet  without  a  leaf,  tangles  of  yellow  jessamine 
scenting  all  the  air. 

I  had  been  taught  by  my  father  (how  Henri  Fabre  would 
have  loved  my  blessed  Dad!) — to  know  and  love  our  forests 
— the  trees,  the  ferns,  the  flowers — the  bird,  and  animal 
and  insect  life  of  them. 

My  father  was  a  poet,  and  my  mother  not  only  a  writer 
of  good  verse  but  a  treasury  of  English  poetry  in  herself. 
From  these  two  I  gained  early  in  childhood  a  mental  out 
look  which  was  neither  material  nor  sordid. 

I  was  allowed  to  choose  and  read  books  for  myself — 
poetry,  mythology  and  fairy  tales,  especially  the  latter.  In 
deed,  I  somewhat  defiantly  kept  up  an  alleged  belief  in 
fairies  long  after  I  knew  that  it  was  lost. 

When  I  went  to  Japan  to  live  it  did  not  take  me  long 
to  love  their  lovely  forests,  too.  Yet  they  were  always  just 
a  bit  exotic.  Worst  of  all,  I  knew  that  if,  by  a  miracle  of 
deftness,  an  Oriental  fairy  should  be  surprised  asleep,  it 
would  surely  have  hair  of  a  raven  blackness  and  wear  a 
bright  kimono. 

But  this  is  divergence  from  the  given  theme.  When  to 
my  husband  I  confessed  the  absurd  homesickness  that  had 
overtaken  me  he  said,  "Why  not  write  a  book  about  your 
Alabama?" 

I  had  never  written  a  book  or  ever  expected  to  begin  one. 
It  seemed  then  too  gigantic  an  undertaking.  I  had  pub- 


170  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

lished  a  slender  book  of  verse  and  a  few  very  poor  short 
stories,  but  these  were  all.  Yet  the  thought  grew  until  I 
said  to  myself,  "Why  not!" 

Thus  it  was  started.  My  heroine,  perforce,  became  a 
Southern  girl  taken  away  from  the  environment  she  loved. 
I  had  at  that  time  been  to  no  great  Northern  city  except 
Boston ;  and  so  to  Boston  went  my  Southern  girl. 

Do  not  mistake  me  in  thinking  that  for  a  moment  I  was 
imagining  Truth  Dexter  to  be  myself.  It  is  my  conviction 
that  very  few  writers  deliberately  put  themselves  into  their 
books,  and  those  who  do  must  like  and  admire  themselves 
better  than  I  have  ever  done.  But  all  of  us  do  use,  and  of 
necessity,  the  outer  experiences  of  life  through  which  we  have 
passed  and  the  localities  with  which  we  are  most  familiar. 

I  sent  the  finished  manuscript  to  the  good  publishers  who 
had  issued  my  timid  book  of  verse.  It  was  accepted  instantly ! 

When  my  husband  and  I  received  the  business-looking 
"galleys" — then  so  exciting,  later  to  become  a  penalty  and  a 
curse — I  felt  more  important  than  I  had  ever  done  in  all 
my  life  before.  Together  we  corrected  the  long,  blurred 
strips,  laughing  and  joking  like  two  children  that  play  at 
being  grown-up,  only  we  were  playing  at  my  being  a  real 
"sure-enough"  author. 

Another  phase  of  the  game  was  choosing  a  nom  de 
plume.  My  fancy  leaned  to  the  high-sounding  title,  "St. 
John  Taliaefferro,"  to  be  pronounced,  of  course,  "Sinjeon 
Tolliver" ;  but  my  smiling  Boston  publishers  coaxed  me  past 
this  special  candy-stall. 

I  then  wrote  out  half-a-dozen  names  and  sent  them  on, 
giving  them  the  choice.  "Sidney  McCall"  was  the  one  which 
they  preferred. 

It  had  never  entered  my  head  to  use  my  personal  name 
to  the  novel,  although  I  had  done  so  with  my  book  of  verse, 
nor  had  the  thought  of  a  possible  brilliant  success  ever  been 
entertained  by  either  one  of  us.  To  have  a  book  instantly 
accepted  and  then  madly  rushed  to  press!  This  seemed  suf 
ficient  glory. 


SIDNEY   McCALL  171 

But  it  was  successful,  and  after  a  lapse  of  many  years  it 
still  has  a  tiny  sale. 

This  is  the  story  of  my  first  book  of  fiction. 

GEORGE  BARR  McCUTCHEON 

At  the  advanced  age  of  twelve  I  produced  my  maiden 
effort,  and  I  am  sure  a  great  many  critics  would  have 
pronounced  it  my  best  and  perhaps  most  enduring 
work  of  fiction,  if  it  had  ever  got  into  print. 

It  was  called  "Panther  Jim;  or,  the  Scout's  Revenge." 
With  more  than  maidenly  hardihood,  I  sent  this,  my  maiden 
effort — to  the  editors  of  St.  Nicholas.  Fortunately  I  heeded 
the  emphatic  notice  at  the  top  of  the  editorial  page  and 
included  postage  for  its  return,  a  circumstance  that  afforded 
the  editors  of  The  Youth's  Companion  a  subsequent  and 
almost  immediate  opportunity  to  follow  the  example  of  the 
editors  of  St.  Nicholas. 

The  editors  of  Boys'  and  Girls'  Weekly — if  I  remember 
correctly — were  next  in  line,  and  after  them  came  The 
Young  Men  of  America,  and  last  of  all,  those  prodigious 
manufacturers  who  turned  out  Beadle's  Dime  Novels  by  the 
thousands. 

Perseverance  was  my  watchword,  promptness  the  slogan 
of  the  editors. 

After  Beadle's  had  returned  "Panther  Jim"  I  decided  that 
something  must  be  wrong  with  the  story.  So  I  sat  me  down 
and  in  due  time — in  and  out  of  hours  spent  with  misguided 
school  teachers  who  labored  under  the  delusion  that  they 
knew  more  than  I  did — produced  my  second  masterpiece: 
"The  Red  Avenger" — truly  a  most  noble  bit  of  work  wasted 
for  the  want  of  intelligence  on  the  part  of  those  who  still 
so  shamelessly  mismanaged  the  affairs  of  St.  Nicholas  and 
The  Youth's  Companion. 

For  several  years  thereafter  I  was  a  regular  contributor 
to  both  of  these  magazines,  and  I  will  say  this  for  the  editors, 
they  were  quite  as  regular  as  I. 


172  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

Of  course,  I  made  it  comparatively  easy  for  them  to  be 
regular  by  enclosing  stamps.  And  they  were  always  polite, 
and  always  encouraging.  I  don't  believe  I  could  have  per 
severed  without  their  neatly  printed  words  of  encourage 
ment.  It  seemed  to  me  that  they  almost  begged  me  to  let 
them  see  my  next  story. 

And  then,  somewhat  abruptly,  I  concluded  that  my  forte 
was  play-writing. 

So  I  wrote  a  few  very  engaging  dramas  for  Miss  Annie 
Pixley  and  Miss  Maggie  Mitchell. 

Always  I  wrote  for  the  ladies. 

And  they  were  ladies — perhaps  of  the  old  school.  I  do 
not  recall  a  single  instance  in  which  they  kept  either  my 
stamps  or  my  play.  To  this  day,  I  retain  these  maiden 
efforts  at  play-writing.  They  are  safely  locked  away  with 
other  venerable  maiden  efforts  and  no  man  sees  them  unless 
I  know  that  he  is  depressed  and  in  dire  need  of  something 
to  stimulate  the  risibilities. 

My  most  stupendous  contribution  to  the  drama — a  five- 
act  play  for  a  well-known  actress  of  the  early  eighties — was 
of  sufficient  importance  to  entice  a  two-page  letter  from  the 
lady  herself  in  which  she  informed  me  that  there  was  really 
a  great  deal  to  my  play. 

In  fact,  she  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  there  was  more 
to  it  than  any  play  she  had  ever  seen. 

The  first  act  alone,  she  wrote,  would  run  (if  permitted) 
from  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening  until  nearly  six  the  next 
morning — and  it  would  have  to  keep  running  at  top  speed 
in  order  to  do  it  in  that  time.  I  am  sure  she  did  not  mean 
to  be  sarcastic. 

I  gathered  from  this  and  other  remarks  the  piece  would 
have  to  be  given  exclusively  in  two-week  stands  if  the  public 
was  to  see  the  play  from  beginning  to  end,  and  as  she  was 
distinctly  a  one-night  star  even  I  could  see  justice  in  her 
lamentation.  I  was  temporarily  discouraged  by  these  revela 
tions. 

However,  I  realized  that  time  was  short.  It  seemed  to 
me  that  I  was  aging  rapidly.  Besides  I  was  wasting  a  good 


GEORGE    BARR    McCUTCHEON  173 

deal  of  precious  time  and  energy  at  baseball  and  swimming. 

Moreover,  I  had  by  this  time,  attained  the  ripe  old  age  of 
fifteen.  I  began  to  think  about  getting  married,  and  as  every 
one  knows  getting  married  is  something  that  calls  for  and 
deserves  a  whole  lot  of  thinking  about.  For  a  little  while 
my  literary  aspirations  went  into  retirement. 

They  bobbed  up  again,  however,  as  nippy  as  ever,  a  week 
or  two  after  the  object  of  my  adoration  announced  her  en 
gagement  to  a  middle-aged  shoe-merchant.  I  would  show 
her!  As  she  was  nearly  the  age  of  thirty  at  the  time — or 
she  may  possibly  have  been  slipping  away  from  it — she  no 
doubt  felt  that  it  was  best  to  get  on  the  safe  side  of  matri 
mony  while  the  getting  was  good.  I  think  she  lived  happily 
ever  afterward. 

I  was  nineteen  when  my  now  far  from  maidenly  or  even 
boyish  efforts  were  rewarded. 

A  magazine  in  Boston  known  as  The  Waverly  accepted 
a  story  and  printed  it  when  I  was  twenty-one.  The  interim 
was  spent  in  perfecting  myself  as  a  shortstop  on  the  college 
nine  and  in  laboriously  memorizing  things  just  before 
"exams." 

You  will  observe  that  my  prolonged  maidenly  efforts  and 
I  came  of  age  at  practically  the  same  time.  The  story  was 
called  "My  First  Party."  It  was  meant  to  be  sprightly,  for 
at  that  time  I  was  trying  to  emulate  George  W.  Peck,  of 
"Peck's  Bad  Boy"  fame,  and  M.  Quad,  of  the  "Limekiln 
Club."  I  read  it  over  in  an  old  scrap-book  the  other  night, 
and  I  must  say  it  is  a  great  deal  funnier  than  I  thought. 

I  may  be  pardoned  for  calling  attention  to  one  bright  and 
original  speech  of  my  hero :  "Ten  thousand  devils,  mother ! 
Where  is  my  clean  handkerchief?"  Here  was  a  definite  de 
parture  from  "Gadzooks"  and  "'Sdeath,"  and,  if  I  do  say  it 
myself,  it  was  a  much  more  graceful  thing  to  say  to  one's 
mother. 

Immediately  after  the  publication  of  this  story  I  assumed 
the  dignity  of  a  real  author.  I  sent  a  second  effusion  to  The 
Waverly  and  this  time  I  was  bold  enough  to  ask  them  if 
they  could  not  pay  something  for  it.  But  they  were  inclined 


174  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

to  adhere  to  a  strictly  literal  conception  of  what  a  contribu 
tion  ought  to  be;  a  contribution  was  a  contribution,  and  so 
far  as  they  were  concerned  that  was  all  there  was  to  it. 

A  period  of  ten  years  elapsed  before  I  had  another  story  in 
a  magazine,  but  I  had  not  labored  in  vain,  I  received  fifteen 
dollars  for  the  tale. 

By  this  time,  however,  I  felt  I  was  too  old  to  marry. 

ANNIE  NATHAN  MEYER 

If  only  one  hadn't  been  so  earnestly — and  elegantly — 
enjoined  to  stick  to  facts!  My  first  literary  effort  was 
entitled  "Alcott's  Effect  on  His  Friends"  and  appeared 
in  The  Critic  in  1888.  I  recall  being  asked  why  I  did  not 
frame  the  check,  which  was  for  the  princely  amount  of  three 
dollars,  but  I  am  glad  to  say  that  even  then  such  a  proceed 
ing  struck  me  as  being  both  sentimental  and  amateurish — 
and  above  all  I  had  a  horror  of  being  amateurish. 

It  was  Jeannette  Gilder — then  editor  of  The  Critic — who 
also  accepted  my  first  work  of  fiction  for  CasseU's,  provided 
I  would  write  a  happier  ending. 

I  compromised,  refusing  to  show  my  heroine  actually  in 
the  hero's  arms,  but  adding  a  letter  from  him  to  her,  dimly 
foreshadowing  the  return  from  "foreign  parts"  of  a  repentant 
lover  abjectly  suing  for  forgiveness. 

How  the  critics  scolded  me!  And,  after  all,  my  hero  had 
been  guilty  of  nothing  worse  than  a  sceptical  attitude  to 
ward  one  woman  being  successful  as  both  physician  and 
wife.  Even  now — twenty-eight  years  later — it  is  not  im 
possible  to  meet  heroes  of  the  same  opinion  still.  Even  with 
the  faintly  adumbrated  happy  ending,  the  novelette  "Helen 
Brett,  M.D."  was  before  its  day. 

Its  subsidiary  theme  was  the  same  handled  later  by  Brieux 
in  his  "Damaged  Goods."  So  distinguished  a  critic  as 
Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson  gently  chided  that  such 
stories  should  remain  in  the  laboratory  or  on  the  shelves  of 
the  medical  library.  Some  of  the  reviewers  were  certain  that 
the  book  (published  anonymously)  was  by  a  disgruntled  old 


ANNIE    NATHAN    ME,YER  175 

maid.*  With  what  glee  did  Miss  Gilder  finally  announce 
that  the  author  was  a  happy,  married  woman ! 

Those  were  the  days  of  real  sport! 

If  it  were  not  that  we  must  tell  only  of  our  very  first 
published  work,  I  should  be  tempted  to  reveal  the  terrible 
misadventure  that  befell  me  in  having  my  first  real  novel 
accepted,  "Robert  Annys:  Poor  Priest." 

The  script  had  been  with  Macmillan  &  Co.  for  a  few 
weeks  when  suddenly  Mr.  Brett,  the  President,  was  an 
nounced  as  calling  on  me  at  the  little  Inn  where  I  was  stay 
ing,  a  two  and  a  half  hour's  trip  from  New  York.  In  the 
wildest  excitement  I  told  the  boy  to  show  the  visitor  over 
to  my  cottage,  and  flew  upstairs  to  tidy  up  (no,  I  don't  use 
it,  even  on  my  nose!) 

Then  it  came  over  me  how  absurd  the  whole  thing  was. 
If  the  firm  were  interested  in  my  book,  surely  they  might 
send  for  me  to  come  to  town,  but  never  in  the  world,  not 
even  on  a  wonderful  June  day  like  that,  would  the  busy 
President  travel  up  to  see  me.  I  had  a  couple  of  brothers 
who  loved  to  tease  and  who  knew  of  my  ambitions ;  of  course, 
it  was  one  of  them  coming  up  from  town  to  surprise  me. 
I  was  chagrined  at  having  "bitten"  at  all. 

So,  hearing  some  one  enter  the  little  cottage,  I  leaned  over 
the  banisters  and  emitted  a  shrill,  most  derisive  sound 
monosyllabically  expressive  of  the  attitude  "You-thought- 
yourself-so-smart-didn't-you-but-you-can't-fool-me."  It  might 
be  spelled  something  like  A-i-n-g-h !  Then,  lest  the  delicate 
irony  of  this  vocative  be  lost,  there  followed  an  entirely 
explicit  "You  thought  you  could  fool  me,  didn't  you.  Come 
up,  you  old  goose,  you,  Rob  or  Harry!  Much  Mr.  Brett 
would  come  all  the  way  up  here  to  see  me." 

Imagine  my  horror  when,  after  an  embarrassed  pause,  a 
strange  voice,  the  voice  of  a  gentleman,  cultivated  and  urbane 

*  A  term  applied  in  former  days  to  women  who,  having  passed  the  age  of 
twenty-five  (at  which  age  today  girls  begin  to  think  of  marriage),  were 
supposed  to  be  no  longer  attractive  enough  to  become  the  chosen  bride  of  some 
man!  It  was  distinctly  a  term  of  opprobrium,  it  being  assumed  that  an  un 
married  woman  connoted  an  unhappy  woman,  baffled  in  the  sole  aim  and 
ambition  of  her  life! 


176  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

even  under  these  trying  circumstances,  assured  me  that  Mr. 
Brett  really  was  there  and  had  really  thought  it  worth  his 
while  to  come  all  the  way  up  to  see  me ! 

But  if  I  must  be  held  literally  to  the  very  first  publication, 
it  was  Woman's  Work  in  America  published  by  Henry 
Holt  in  1891.  Three  years  spent  in  corresponding  with  the 
seventeen  women  whom  I  engaged  to  write  the  chapters 
naturally  yielded  some  amusing  experiences. 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  was  the  letter  from  Mrs. 
Julia  Ward  Howe,  regretting  that  because  of  her  many 
literary  engagements  she  was  unable  to  accede  to  my  request 
to  write  the  Introduction.  Like  many  a  less  distinguished 
woman,  the  pith  of  her  letter  lay  in  the  postscript,  "Are  you 
by  any  chance  related  to  my  dear  friend,  Hetty  Lazarus?" 
Replying  that  Hetty  Lazarus  was  my  aunt  and  her  eminent 
daughter,  Emma,  my  first  cousin,  Mrs.  Howe's  negative  was 
swiftly  changed  to  a  most  gracious  affirmative. 

One  of  the  authors — a  most  impressive  white-haired 
woman — after  corresponding  with  me  in  my  editorial  ca 
pacity  for  two  years,  was  much  chagrined  to  find  me  only  a 
snip  of  a  girl,  twenty-three  years,  weighing  less  than  a  hun 
dred  pounds. 

Our  interview  took  place  during  a  session  of  the  W.  C. 
T.  U.,  behind  the  huge  stage  of  the  Metropolitan  Opera 
House.  It  was  my  first  experience  of  behind  the  scenes — 
a  disconcerting  one  at  best,  and  I  found  the  semi-darkness 
of  that  vast,  confused  space  quite  awe-inspiring.  The  lady 
peered  about,  looking  for  this  Annie  Nathan  Meyer  who  had 
been  announced,  quite  overlooking  little  me. 

At  last  I  summoned  up  courage  to  say  that  I  was  this 
Annie  Nathan  Meyer,  only  to  be  told  by  her  quite  sternly 
that  I  might  be  her  daughter,  but  that  I  certainly  could  not 
under  any  possible  stretch  of  the  imagination  be  she.  She 
had  a  peculiarly  authoritative  manner  and  I  found  myself 
on  the  point  of  going  home  to  tell  myself  that  I  should  have 
come  in  person  and  not  sent  my  daughter. 

There  was  another  of  the  seventeen  who  had  held  up  the 
publication  for  nearly  a  year,  on  one  pretext  or  another.  The 


ANNIE    NATHAN    MEYER  177 

last  was  the  illness  of  her  mother.  She  made  the  most  of 
what  might  legitimately  have  excused  a  delay  of  a  few  weeks. 
Finally,  the  manuscript  arrived,  with  a  letter,  saying  that 
"You  will  be  delighted  to  know  that  at  last  my  mother's 
death  has  permitted  me  to  finish  this." 

I  believe  it  was  then  that  I  said  something  to  the  effect 
that  next  time  it  would  be  seventeen  men!! 

ALICE  DUER  MILLER 

The  first  eleven  years  of  my  life  were  full  of  maiden 
efforts.     As  soon  as  I   could  write  and  long,  long 
before   I  could  spell,   I  took  in  hand  a  pencil  and 
four  sheets  of  my  mother's  best  note  paper  and  began : 

CHAPTER  I 

Lily  and  Jane  lived  in  a  nice  house. 
They  had  a  garden. 

After  I  had  described  what  grew  in  the  garden,  what  they 
had  for  breakfast  (for  in  these  days  I  was  a  realist)  and 
the  arrival  of  the  governess  for  their  daily  lessons,  I  had 
a  feeling  that  the  narrative  lacked  interest  and  so  I  dis 
carded  it  and  began  an  entirely  new  one. 

CHAPTER  I 

Madeleine  and  Lily  lived  in  a  nice  house  with  their 
parents.    Every  morning  they  went  to  their  garden. 

Then  this  realist  method  passed  away,  and  in  the  twinkling 
of  an  eye,  I  became,  I  can't  remember  how,  a  romanticist. 
It  was  under  this  inspiration  that  I  produced  my  first  com 
plete  work.  It  was  written  in  a  buff-colored  account  book. 
It  was  called  "The  Nun."  It  dealt  with  the  escape  of  a 
nun  from  her  convent. 

Its  treatment  of  the  sex  problem  was  franker  than  that 
of  Casanova  or  "The  Young  Visiters." 

About  this  time,  when  I  was  perhaps  nine  years  old,  I 
wrote  a  good  deal  of  verse,  somewhat  under  the  influence 
of  classic  mythology.  One  of  these  efforts  began : 


178  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

"We  stood  by  the  bank  of  the  blue  tossing  water 
Diana's  white  car  rising  over  the  sea — " 

I  sent  this  to  St.  Nicholas,  which  returned  it  with  a  very 
kind  letter,  saying  that  rejection  did  not  imply  lack  of  merit 
in  the  contribution.  They  seemed  to  be  immensely  grate 
ful  to  me  for  having  thought  of  them  at  all.  The  letter 
consoled  me  quite  a  little,  and  I  do  not  remember  feeling 
any  failure  of  intimacy,  although  I  suppose  it  must  have 
been  a  printed  letter. 

The  first  thing  of  mine  that  was  printed  and  paid  for  was, 
as  far  as  I  can  remember,  a  fable  of  about  a  thousand  words 
which  I  wrote  during  the  mid-year  examinations  of  my  first 
year  in  college — a  reaction  from  cramming.  A  well  known 
writer  who  was  by  way  of  admiring  my  elder  sister  at  the 
time  said  it  was  very  remarkable  and  that  Scribner's  Maga 
zine  would  accept  it  on  sight.  Scribners  Magazine  felt  dif 
ferently,  but  the  editor  of  Harper  s  Magazine  was  more  en 
lightened  and  not  only  accepted  it,  but  sent  me  thirty  dollars, 
and  printed  it — right  out: 

"A  Fable  for  Youths,"  by  Alice  Duer. 

It  was  an  ecstatic  moment. 


CLEVELAND  MOFFETT 

I    am  hesitating  between  two  memories  as  to  my  maiden 
literary   effort.      This   was   probably   a   rather   savage 
criticism,  published  in    The   Yale  News,  of   President 
Hadley's  method  of  teaching  German  at  Yale  College  where 
I  was  then  a  sophomore.  That  is  a  much  more  dignified  choice 
than  the  other  one,  for  Hadley  (then  a  tutor)  certainly  did 
teach  German  in  a  queer  way,  and  I  suppose  now  regrets 
that  he  ever  taught  it  at  all,  just  as  I  regret  any  time  spent 
in  learning  the  miserable  language. 

It  is  possible,  however,  that  my  real  maiden  effort  was 
made  some  months  earlier,  during  the  summer  vacation  in 
the  peaceful  hills  of  Northern  New  Jersey. 


CLEVELAND    MOFFETT  179 

This  was  a  poem  entitled  "The  Song  of  the  Bank  Cashier" 
and  was  a  most  immoral  production  for  a  serious-minded 
minister's  son.  It  was  published  (without  payment)  in 
Texas  Siftings  and  afterwards  reprinted  in  the  New  York 
Sun. 

THE  SONG  OF  THE  BANK  CASHIER 
By  Royal  Camp  (Camouflage  name) 

I  was  sitting  in  a  hammock,  not  alone, 
I  was  sitting  near  an  object,  not  of  stone. 
On  my  cheeks,  mid  whispers  low, 
I  could  feel  her  sweet  breath  blow, 
Fragrance  richer  far  than  Eau 
De  Cologne. 

Quite  entranced  with  the  delicious  situation, 
Yielding  madly  to  a  wild  intoxication, 
Which  inspired  me  to  enfold 
Something  rather  nice  to  hold 
In  one's  arms,  I  made  the  old 
Declaration. 

She  said  "Yes"  and  we  were  married  in  the  Fall, 

We  had  love  enough  but  lacked  the  wherewithal, 

So  we  carried  off  a  load 

Of  the  dollars  that  were  stowed 

In  the  safe.     Now  our  abode  is — 

Montreal. 

This  poem  should  be  barred  from  all  homes,  high  schools, 
Sunday  schools  and  other  centres  of  culture,  for  it  teaches 
no  lesson  that  deserves  commendation.  It  contains  no  ex 
ample  of  patriotism,  flag  waving,  national  or  individual  up 
lift,  or  anything  of  the  kind.  Its  philosophy  is  distinctly 
of  the  Jesse  James  order,  and  if  followed  by  all  young  men 
who  happen  to  swing  in  hammocks  with  good  looking 
maidens,  would  lead  to  distressing  consequences. 


180  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

I  hope  that  the  rest  of  your  self-revealing  authors  will  not 
be  forced  to  admit  that  they  began  their  careers  in  a  similarly 
unworthy  fashion. 

ETHEL  WATTS  MUMFORD 

It's  hard  for  me  to  decide  just  which  was  my  maiden 
effort.  The  first  literary  gems  of  mine  to  reach  the  eye 
of  the  public,  were  verses — very  melancholy.  I  was 
about  seventeen.  I  had  written  much  before  that — poems 
and  "vignettes,"  also  melancholy.  I  have  an  antique  volume 
of  versified  Sob  and  Passion,  copied  out  in  the  fair  round 
hand  of  a  school  girl  Boswell,  written  when  I  was  teetering 
between  fourteen  and  fifteen,  on  the  proverbial  spot  "where 
the  brook  and  river  meet" ;  but  with  no  sort  of  reluctant 
feet,  I'll  warrant,  except,  perhaps,  in  the  scanning  of  the 
aforesaid  metrics — for  only  recently  I  re-read  these  early 
carollings  with  amazement  and  crimson  blushings. 

Just  what  a  "flapper"  is  I  shall  forever  be  unable  to 
elucidate.  Certainly  not  after  reading  what  seems  to  my 
maturer  eyes  those  most  unmaidenly  efforts. 

It  was  Oliver  Herford  who  hounded  me  into  literature, 
insisting  that  I  "could  if  I  would" — I  believed  him  and  did. 

But  my  first  real  remunerative,  straight-from-the-shoulder 
try  at  a  short  story  won  a  prize  in  The  Black  Cat  com 
petition,  and  hung  me  promptly  at  the  shrine  of  Art — a 
votive  offering. 

It  was  called  "When  Time  Turned,"  and  it  was  a  genuine 
brand-new  idea.  I  have  since  shaken  hands  with  it  under 
many  titles  and  fathered  by  many  authors,  and  it  doesn't 
recall  its  Mama — but  its  Mama  gets  a  thrill  every  time. 
I  treasured  for  years  the  typewritten  page  that  officially 
notified  me  that  I  was  to  receive  the  accolade  that  knighted 
me  a  winner  in  the  free-for-all  tournament. 

We  authors  owe  a  lot  to  The  Black  Cat  competitions. 
They  have  put  heart  into  many  a  novice.  I  was  glad  to  see 
that  recently  they  were  at  it  again  with  a  competition  for 
novelettes  in  addition  to  their  usual  short  story  goal. 


ETHEL   WATTS    MUMFORD  181 

In  the  field  of  Drama,  my  maiden  effort  had  the  honor  to  • 
be  produced  by  that  delightful  artist,  Annie  Russell.  It 
was  a  tragedy,  of  course.  It  would  seem  that  I  had  to 
reach  my  voting  majority  before  I  could  discover  that  the 
written  word  could  be  induced  to  suggest  a  smile.  I  wonder 
if  the  Tragic  Muse  always  stalks  beside  the  fledgling 
Pegasus.  Perhaps  the  pages  of  this  forthcoming  "Book  of 
Beginnings"  will  enlighten  me. 

MEREDITH  NICHOLSON 

My  experiences  as  a  writer  have  been  sadly  lacking  in 
the  element  of  adventure.  My  schooling  ended  in 
my  fifteenth  year.  At  about  seventeen  I  began  to 
write  verse;  I  wrote  a  great  deal  of  it.  I  had  been  mailing 
my  jingles  to  all  sorts  of  newspapers  and  magazines  when 
one  day  I  was  highly  edified  by  the  receipt  of  a  check  for 
three  dollars  for  a  poem  called  "Grape  Bloom"  which  I 
had  sent  to  the  New  York  Mercury. 

My  recollection  of  the  Mercury  is  very  indistinct,  but  I 
believe  it  printed  fiction  against  a  background  of  theatrical 
and  sporting  news.  For  about  two  years  I  bought  the 
paper  regularly  but  never  saw  my  verses  in  print,  so  this 
hardly  scores  as  a  maiden  effort. 

At  that  time  James  Whitcomb  Riley's  poems  were  ap 
pearing  every  Sunday  in  the  Indianapolis  Journal.  I  was 
a  stenographer  in  the  law  office  of  William  and  Lew  Wal 
lace  at  Indianapolis  and  was  one  of  many  fledgling  bards 
whose  work  was  tacked  on  to  the  end  of  Riley's  column. 

One  Saturday  Riley,  whom  I  had  been  worshiping  from 
afar  but  had  never  spoken  to,  appeared  suddenly  in  the  law 
office  carrying  a  copy  of  the  Cincinnati  Enquirer.  He 
pointed  to  a  poem  of  his  own  and  one  of  mine  that  were  re 
produced  in  adjoining  columns,  and  said  a  friendly  word 
about  my  work. 

His  invaluable  friendship  to  the  end  of  his  days  may  not 
be  described  here,  but  in  those  years  there  was  a  sweetness 
in  his  characteristically  shy  manifestations  of  good  will  that 


182  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

are  indelibly  associated  with  my  memories  of  him.  The 
first  time  I  ever  ate  beefsteak  and  mushrooms  he  spread  the 
banquet  for  me,  the  ostensible  purpose  being  to  invite  my 
criticism  (I  was  nineteen)  of  a  new  volume  he  was  pre 
paring  for  the  press.  My  appearance  in  those  days  sug 
gested  my  early  departure  hence  by  the  tuberculosis  route, 
and  he  may  have  thought  to  delay  my  passing  by  giving  me 
at  least  one  substantial  feeding. 

My  rhyming  in  the  law  office  didn't  prevent  a  few  at 
tempts  at  story-writing. 

The  Chicago  Tribune  was  offering  every  week  a  "prize" 
of  five  dollars  for  a  short  story  of  about  a  column's  length. 
The  first  one  I  offered,  called  "The  Tale  of  a  Postage 
Stamp"  earned  the  five.  I  immediately  wrote  several  others 
which  did  not,  however,  take  the  prize.  The  short  story 
didn't  interest  me  particularly,  and  after  a  second  had  been 
printed  in  the  Chicago  Current,  an  ambitious  literary  journal 
that  was  braving  the  airs  of  Chicago  just  then,  and  a  third 
in  the  McClure  Syndicate,  I  didn't  write,  or  even  try  writ 
ing,  short  stories  until  about  six  years  ago. 

I  was  in  newspaper  work  for  a  dozen  years,  after  I  gave 
up  the  idea  of  being  a  lawyer;  then  I  was  in  business  for 
three  years,  but  all  the  time  I  kept  writing  something.  My 
first  prose  book  was  an  historical  essay,  and  I  have  tackled 
nearly  everything  except  a  play.  After  writing  twenty 
books,  inclusive  of  verse,  essays  and  several  kinds  of  fiction, 
I  am  still  a  good  deal  surprised  every  time  I  find  that  I  have 
piled  up  enough  manuscript  to  make  a  volume. 

Youngsters  sometimes  ask  me  how  they  may  become 
writers.  The  only  way  to  write  is  to  write.  If  the  tyro 
finds  that  he  has  nothing  to  say  or  that  precision  and  ease 
cannot  be  wedded  on  his  scratch  pad,  then  I  should  say  that 
he  has  erred  in  thinking  that  the  gods  have  summoned  him 
to  the  altar  of  literature.  But  every  young  imagination 
that  pines  for  flights  in  "the  azure  deeps  of  air"  should  be 
encouraged;  for  we  shall  always  be  ready  to  welcome  in 
America  a  company  of  new  writers  who,  in  philosophy  or 
fiction  or  poetry,  have  a  message  of  hope  and  cheer  for  the 
care-weary  children  of  men. 


CHARLES   G.   NORRIS  183 

CHARLES  G.  NORRIS 

I  have  wanted  to  write  ever  since  I  was  eight  years  old. 
I  kept  a  diary  then,  and  indulged  my  imagination  in  liter 
ary  flights  which  I  fondly  believed  might  some  day  be 
discovered  by  posterity,  and  included  in  the  "Life  and  Let 
ters."  At  thirteen,  I  commenced  a  novel  entitled  "In  the 
Reign  of  the  Grand  Monarch"  at  which  I  worked  after 
school  hours.  If  it  can  be  said  that  this  effort  ever  had  a 
beginning,  it  certainly  had  no  end;  for  it  went  on  and  on, 
and  if  I  remember  correctly  I  was  still  adding  to  its  pages 
five  years  later.  As  I  never  took  time  to  read  what  I  had 
written,  I  never  became  discouraged. 

My  brother,  Frank,  was  eleven  years  older  than  I.  As 
a  beginner  in  literature  himself,  the  family  regarded  him 
somewhat  in  the  nature  of  a  freak. 

My  early  aspirations  were  therefore  summarily  discour 
aged.  They  said  to  me:  "Come,  come — enough  of  this; 
one  'genius'  in  the  family  is  enough ;  we  can't  endure  two ; 
you'd  better  be  thinking  about  watch-making." 

But  I  escaped  the  fate  of  a  jeweller  and  after  college  got 
a  job  in  a  publishing  house.  For  the  next  ten  years  I  was 
told  what  a  remarkable  and  gifted  writer  my  brother  Frank 
was. 

Then  I  married.  And  for  the  next  six  years  after  that, 
I  was  told  what  a  remarkable  and  gifted  writer  my  wife 
was.  As  I  was  well  aware  of  both  these  facts,  I  confess 
their  steady  repetition  began  to  bore  me  a  trifle. 

I  faced  the  fate  of  being  known  the  first  half  of  my 
life  as  "Frank  Norris'  brother,"  and  for  the  latter  half,  as 

"Kathleen  Norris'  Husband" so  at  the  age  of  thirty-four, 

I  decided  to  write  a  novel  myself. 

Nobody  was  more  surprised  than  I  was  myself  when  I 
succeeded,  but  the  wonder  of  wonders  came  when  I  found 
a  publisher.  "The  Amateur"  went  through  several  shops 
before  it  met  with  favor  in  any  one,  and  it  may  be  interest 
ing  to  know,  that  when  my  next  book  came  along,  the  pub 
lisher  who  had  taken  a  chance  on  my  first  effort,  would 
have  naught  of  my  second,  which  sold,  when  it  eventually 
appeared,  ten  times  as  well. 


184  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

KATHLEEN  NORRIS 

It  was  a  short  story,  and  I  called  it  "What  Happened  to 
Alanna."  I  wrote  it  in  1902  when  I  was  a  bookkeeper 
in  a  hardware  house  in  San  Francisco  and  solaced  my 
rather  monotonous  days  with  the  thought  that  some  day  I 
would  be  a  writer. 

Previously  I  had  written  birthday  poems  and  letters  in 
rhyme  and  had  selected  the  title  of  my  first  novel,  which 
was  to  be  called  "The  Bells  of  Saint  Giles."  My  sister, 
who  was  afterward — many  years  afterward,  to  become  the 
wife  of  William  Rose  Benet,  and  whose  literary  judgment 
was  keen  at  sixteen,  was  then  earning  ten  dollars  a  month 
teaching  a  kindergarten;  she  spent  five  of  those  ten  dollars 
that  month  secretly  in  having  my  story  copied,  and  sent  it  to 
several  New  York  magazines.  It  then  went  into  a  trunk. 

In  April,  1906,  the  great  earthquake  cast  together  several 
literary  beginners  in  our  country  home,  and  six  of  us  wrote 
earthquake  stones  and  mailed  them  east  before  the  tragedy 
was  forty-eight  hours  old.  Five  of  these  were  taken,  mine 
was  returned.  Disgusted,  I  took  out  my  old  story,  and  tried 
its  luck  again,  with  The  Black  Cat,  I  think.  It  then  went 
into  a  trunk. 

Then  came  three  or  four  brief  sketches  for  the  San  Fran 
cisco  Argonaut,  and  two  years  as  a  reporter  on  the  Call. 
Thrilled  by  the  sight  of  my  words  in  print,  I  got  out 
"Alanna"  again,  but  although  the  one  editor  to  whom  I  sent 
it  wrote  me  a  charming  letter,  Alanna  came  back  with  the 
letter — back  to  the  trunk. 

In  1909  the  trunk  and  Alanna  and  I  went  to  New  York 
and  I  was  married ;  incidentally  to  a  magazine  man  who 
believed  that  I  could  write. 

Now  comes  the  really  interesting  part  of  Alanna's  career. 
The  magazine  man  made  a  list  of  twenty-eight  magazines 
which  used  fiction,  beginning  alphabetically  with  The  At 
lantic.  He  sent  Alanna  steadily  down  the  line  with  a  sick 
ening  cost  to  himself,  for  stamps  and  envelopes,  but  none 


KATHLEEN    NORRIS  185 

to  my  feelings,  for  he  volunteered  no  information,  and  I 
avoided  the  subject  as  if  it  had  been  the  pestilence. 

Having  completed  her  tour,  Alanna  returned  in  due  ro 
tation  to  The  Atlantic,  and  this  time  found  friendly  earth 
upon  which  to  plant  her  foot.  The  editor  accepted  the 
story,  with  a  score  of  kindly  words.  I  could  write  the  letter 
now  in  the  dark  and  put  in  every  comma  correctly. 

The  thunderbolt  dazed  us  for  days — we  decided  to  admit 
to  a  few  intimates  the  literary  triumph,  but  to  say  nothing 
of  the  remarkable  statement  concerning  a  check  for  seventy- 
five  dollars  until  it  came.  This  last  did  not  seem  humanly 
possible. 

The  check  came;  it  was  hard,  in  the  small  and  limited 
shops  of  mere  New  York,  to  think  of  anything  we  would 
not  be  able  to  buy — if  we  wanted  to,  with  that  first  check! 
It  remains  a  memory  almost  awful  in  its  enormity — the 
opened  door!  The  rejoicing,  the  excitement,  the  plans  for 
that  check  bring  tears  to  my  eyes  when  I  remember  it  now. 

And  between  its  first  fair  copy,  in  California,  1902,  and 
its  appearance  in  The  Atlantic  in  September,  1910,  not  one 
word  of  my  maiden  effort  had  been  altered. 

WILLIAM  HAMILTON  OSBORNE 

I  am  one  of  the  most  accidental  of  all  accidental  authors. 
I  was  born  and  brought  up  in  the  conservative  city  of 
Newark,  New  Jersey;  was  duly  graduated  by  a  public 
high  school,  and  later  by  a  law  school  in  New  York.     No 
university   training,   no   background   of   travel,   no   exciting 
youthful  career — and,  of  course,  no  college  paper.     I  settled 
down  to  practice-  law. 

On  a  certain  memorable  day  just  as  I  was  sliding  out  of 
my  twenties  into  my  thirties,  the  Saturday  Evening  Post 
published  a  serio-comic  article  entitled  "The  Fiction 
Market."  I  remember  it  well.  It  was  decorated  with  an 
illustration  showing  a  young  author  taking  three  silk-hatted 
editors  out  to  lunch. 


186  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

I  showed  the  article  to  a  near  relative  of  mine — by  mar 
riage.  She  countered  with  an  off-hand  suggestion  that  I 
ought  to  try  my  hand  at  story-writing.  For  answer  I  shut 
myself  up  in  a  small  room  and  wrote  a  story — just  like  that! 

This  first  adventurous  effort  was  entitled  "The  Bank 
Compounds  a  Felony."  I  first  sent  the  story  to  The  Argosy. 
Inside  of  a  week  Matthew  White,  Jr.,  the  editor,  accepted 
it  and  offered  me  twelve  dollars  for  it. 

One  week  after  that  he  returned  the  manuscript,  all 
marked  up  with  his  red-ink  editing-pen,  with  a  letter  stating 
that  he  had  read  the  story  to  a  business  man  who  had  stopped 
him  in  the  middle  of  the  story  and  told  him  he  had  read  it 
somewhere  before.  Mr.  White  said  there  was  no  charge  of 
plagiarism,  but  I  was  a  new  writer  and  as  somebody  had 
recently  tried  to  sell  them  several  stolen  stories,  they 
couldn't  take  a  chance. 

I  expostulated,  but  it  did  no  good.  The  story  I  then  sent 
to  several  other  magazines,  detailing,  however,  all  the  cir 
cumstances.  Finally  The  Nickel  Magazine  (a  five-center) 
bought  the  story. 

No  sooner  was  it  published  than  a  lady  from  Chicago 
wrote  the  editor,  sending  on  a  published  story  of  her  own, 
which  contained  the  same  peculiar  twist  at  the  end — the 
twist  being  the  leading  feature  that  made  the  stories.  In 
general  the  stories  were  alike.  In  detail  they  were  vastly 
different.  She  stated  that  her  published  story  had  been  writ 
ten  from  facts  she  knew  personally.  Her  story  had  been 
stolen  seven  times  already,  and  she  opined  that  my  per 
formance  constituted  the  eighth  offense. 

I  wrote  her,  but  received  no  answer;  I  assume  she  did 
not  believe  my  protestations  of  innocence. 

That  was  but  the  beginning.  Later  the  editor  of  The 
Nickel  Magazine  sent  me  an  English  newspaper — a  well- 
known  paper  published  in  London,  containing  my  story  word 
for  word,  except  for  names  and  figures,  now  entitled  "How 
Burton  Saved  the  Bank,"  signed  by  a  name  other  than  my 
own.  Did  this  constitute  the  ninth  lifting  of  the  story? 
It  looks  like  it. 


WILLIAM    HAMILTON    OSBORNE        187 

But  the  end  was  not  yet. 

Shortly  after  the  London  publication  of  my  story  as 
above,  the  New  York  Daily  News  reprinted  that  story — 
just  as  it  appeared  in  the  London  newspaper,  with  the  new 
title,  and  the  English  author's  name — in  its  Sunday  sup 
plement.  The  News  probably  bought  the  rights  to  the 
story  from  the  English  newspaper,  but  at  any  rate  (since 
the  rights  to  the  original  story  belonged  either  to  me  or  to 
The  Nickel  Magazine)  the  News  could  not  acquire  any 
better  rights  than  the  English  paper  had,  which  were  nil. 
Hence,  technically — however  innocently — the  News  appar 
ently  lifted  the  story  for  the  tenth  time. 

Note,  also,  that  it  was  the  Munsey  Company,  which  in 
the  first  instance  regretfully  returned  my  story  because  they 
feared  it  was  stolen;  and  it  was  the  Munsey  Company  in 
the  final  show-down,  that  cheerfully  published  this  very 
much  bedeviled  story,  without  question,  in  its  New  York 
Daily  News.  I  have  never  admitted  that  I  stole  the  story 
from  any  other  version.  But  evidently  the  public  cannot 
get  too  much  of  a  good  thing. 

The  singular  thing  about  the  whole  affair  is  this — at  least 
for  me:  if  I  had  not  written  a  second  story  before  I  got 
Mr.  White's  second  letter,  I  would  have  then  and  there 
concluded  that  my  story  writing  venture  was  a  ghastly 
failure. 

When  I  got  enough  money  together  to  make  a  showing, 
I  went  over  to  New  York  to  take  out  to  lunch  the  silk- 
hatted  editor  of  a  magazine  that  had  accepted  my  latest  and 
most  important  story.  I  was  duly  introduced. 

I  discovered  that  the  magazine  had  nine  editors  and  that 
my  story  had  been  accepted  by  them  all.  Thereupon  I  left 
immediately,  by  the  nearest  exit. 

During  my  first  fiscal  year,  in  my  leisure  hours,  I  wrote 
one  hundred  and  forty  short  stories,  of  all  lengths,  and  sold 
one  hundred  and  six  of  them,  at  the  lowest  possible  prices 
to  all  sorts  of  magazines  and  newspapers.  And  I  have  had 
more  rejection  slips  per  MSS.  than  any  other  author  in  the 
world. 


188  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

I  once  sent  a  story  to  125  magazines  and  newspapers  and 
finally  had  it  accepted  by  Lippincott's  Magazine,  which  I 
had  somehow  overlooked  in  the  beginning. 

WILL  PAYNE 

I  haven't  the  faintest  recollection  of  the  title  of  my  first 
story,  or  what  it  was  about.  All  I  remember  is  the  post- 
office. 

At  the  right,  as  you  entered,  there  was  a  glass  show  case, 
perhaps  six  feet  long,  containing  a  dozen  or  so  silver  watches, 
three  or  four  gold,  or  near  gold,  ones,  a  tray  of  rings,  a 
handful  of  chains  and  lockets.  Behind  the  show  case  and 
well  up  in  the  window  to  get  the  light  there  was  a  little 
work  bench  with  a  rack  above  it  on  which  hung  several 
repaired  watches  waiting  for  their  owners.  This  comprised 
the  establishment  of  the  village  jeweler. 

All  the  ponderable  objects  on  the  left-hand  side  of  the 
postoffice — if  we  except  the  proprietor,  who  weighed  more 
than  three  hundred — might  have  been  put  in  a  couple  of 
hand  carts.  But  the  imponderables  gave  it  a  vast  impor 
tance.  The  proprietor  was  our  state  senator,  and  weighty 
conversation  of  a  political  nature  was  always  going  on  there. 

The  postoffice  proper  was  beyond  all  this,  presenting  to 
the  in-comer's  view  a  series  of  glass-faced  letter-boxes,  with 
a  wicket  at  the  left  where  stamps  were  sold,  mail  delivered, 
postal  orders  cashed.  Mail  came  in  from  the  East  once  a 
day.  The  wicket  was  shut  then,  and  a  considerable  part  of 
the  able-bodied  population  gathered  in  the  postoffice  while 
the  postmaster  and  his  assistant  distributed  the  mail  with 
much  deliberation.  Very  often  the  room  was  so  crowded 
that  one  made  way  through  it  with  difficulty. 

The  crowd  was  very  embarrassing  for  me.  The  letter 
box  that  received  my  mail  was  over  to  the  left,  not  far  from 
the  wicket,  and  about  breast  high — a  painfully  conspicuous 
location. 

Ten  days  after  I  had  mailed  my  story — which  would  be 
the  shortest  time  for  mail  to  reach  the  Atlantic  seaboard 


WILL    PAYNE  189 

and  return — I  was  on  hand  daily  when  the  Eastern  mail 
was  distributed,  always  with  a  furtive  eye  on  the  letter  box 
and  an  elaborate  camouflage  of  assumed  indifference  as 
though  I  expected  nothing  but  the  most  ordinary  mail. 

At  length  the  day  came  when  a  long,  bulky  envelope  slid 
into  the  letter  box  and  my  heart  slid  into  my  shoes. 

Once  in  the  box,  that  envelope  seemed  to  me  as  con 
spicuous  as  a  corpse  with  its  throat  cut. 

I  expected  the  people  about  me  to  break  out  in  conversa 
tion  about  it.  I  hung  about  until  the  crowd  at  the  delivery 
wicket  dwindled  away;  then  stole  up  and,  having  received 
my  corpse  from  the  postmaster's  callous  and  calloused  hand, 
slipped  it  into  an  inside  pocket  and  hastened  away. 

But  I  had  to  be  on  hand  when  the  mail  was  distributed 
because  Mr.  X  sometimes  got  the  mail  from  that  box.  He 
was  facetious.  The  return  card  of  The  Century  Magazine, 
or  McClure's,  or  Scribners  on  the  corner  of  the  envelope 
might  have  aroused  a  curiosity  in  his  mind  that  would  have 
been  very  embarrassing  to  me. 

In  private,  I  opened  the  envelope,  read  the  printed  or 
stereotyped  note  which  regretted  that  my  story  was  unavail 
able;  and  then  mailed  the  story  somewhere  else. 

I  must  have  been  at  least  a  year  mailing  that  story  and 
getting  it  back. 

If  any  magazine  escaped  it  was  simply  because  I  didn't 
know  of  it.  As  I  have  no  recollection  of  its  final  disposition, 
I  conclude  that  a  process  of  attrition  must  at  length  have 
worn  it  completely  out. 

Meanwhile  I  was  trying  to  write  other  stories.  One  day 
I  received  a  sample  copy  of  a  magazine  whose  name  I  have 
forgotten.  It  was  unbound,  printed  on  an  inexpensive 
quality  of  paper  and  above  the  title  appeared  a  vignette  of 
Minerva.  Not  a  great  many  years  ago  I  described  its  ap 
pearance  to  a  veteran  editor  whereupon  he  gave  the  title 
and  told  me  who  published  it;  but  unfortunately  I  have 
forgotten  again.  Coming  across  a  new  magazine  was  quite 
a  little  godsend;  and  I  sent  on  a  story. 


190  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

It  was  accepted.  The  editor  explained,  however,  that 
they  didn't  pay  money  for  fiction  but,  in  view  of  the  excel 
lence  of  my  contribution  he  would  give  me  a  year's  subscrip 
tion  to  the  magazine. 

It  sounded  very  friendly  and  encouraging  and  in  those 
days  mere  money  was  a  very  secondary  consideration  any 
way.  What  I  wanted  was  the  glory  of  print.  Thus 
heartened,  I  soon  achieved  another  story  and  sent  it  on.  I 
was  a  bit  dashed  on  receiving  from  the  editor  another  very 
friendly,  encouraging  letter,  which  was  identical  in  every 
thing  except  the  date  with  his  first  one.  But  I  was  achieving 
print — and  subscriptions. 

As  I  recollect  it,  I  had  seven  years  due  me  when  I  dis 
covered  an  editor  who  would  pay  real  money  for  a  story — 
to  wit,  four  dollars. 

HUGH  PENDEXTER 

My  very  first  effort  was  written  at  the  age  of  fourteen. 
Never  having  been  out  of  New  England,  I  made  it 
a  Western  story. 

I  endeavored  to  imitate  Bret  Harte,  but  with  the  avowed 
purpose  of  making  it  snappier.  Every  other  verb  carried  a 
gunshot  wound  or  thrust  a  bowie  knife.  I  sent  it  to  The 
Banner  Weekly,  published  by  Beadle  and  Adams  to  accom 
modate  the  overflow  of  their  dime-novel  material.  My 
friends  pronounced  it  a  humdinger,  and  I  was  positive  of 
its  acceptance. 

And  darned  if  they  didn't  write  me  for  postage  so  they 
could  send  it  back. 

Some  soul,  even  in  a  dime-novel  office,  must  have  visioned 
the  expectancy  of  a  youth  receiving  an  envelope  too  small 
to  contain  a  bulky  script,  but  just  the  right  size  for  holding 
a  check.  Some  soul  in  that  Deadwood  Dick  factory  might 
have  written  his  name  above  all  the  rest  by  digging  down 
into  his  jeans  and  supplying  the  return  postage,  thereby 
saving  me  from  the  double  jolt.  But  he  didn't. 


HUGH    PENDEXTER  191 

I've  often  wished  I  had  saved  that  very  first  yarn.  I 
know  it  was  good,  for  all  the  kids  so  voted. 

My  first  sale  to  any  publication  was  to  the  old  Portland, 
Maine,  Transcript.  I  received  three  dollars  and  a  half,  and 
carried  the  check  for  display  purposes  until  I  had  difficulty 
in  cashing  it.  Later,  I  sent  stories  to  Mr.  Arthur  G.  Staples, 
then  in  charge  of  the  Lewiston,  Maine,  Journal's  Magazine 
Section.  He  bought  several,  and  was  the  first  to  write  me 
about  my  work  and  encourage  me  to  try  for  bigger  mar 
kets. 

My  first  sale  to  a  magazine  was  a  short  rural  story,  "In 
the  Shadow  of  Daniel  Webster."  Mr.  Trumbull  White, 
then  editor  of  The  Red  Book,  sent  me  into  the  empyrean 
by  offering  twenty-five  dollars.  I  shall  always  remember 
how  that  epochal  letter  raised  me  above  all  celestial  heights 
and  permitted  me  to  confab  with  the  gods.  If  my  feet  occa 
sionally  hit  old  earth  I  cleaned  them  on  a  cloud  without 
abandoning  my  aloofness. 

Ultimately,  a  closer  perusal  of  the  acceptance  sobered  me 
off  and  I  descended  to  my  waiting  family.  The  editor  did 
not  unqualifiedly  declare  he  would  take  the  story.  "We 
might  be  able  to  use  it,"  were  his  words.  I  soared  no  more, 
nor  slept  of  nights  until  the  deal  was  cemented  by  the  ar 
rival  of  the  check. 

A  few  weeks  later  I  sold  another  to  Mr.  White,  at  the 
same  price.  This  time  my  exaltation  lifted  me  only  a  few 
miles  above  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  building  and  I  was 
back  on  earth  after  an  absence  of  three  days. 

The  third  success  with  the  same  editor  gave  me  the  ennui 
of  an  old-timer  explaining  ancient  truths  to  a  fledgling.  I 
remember  that  I  opened  the  third  pay  envelope  without 
swooning.  Then  I  submitted  two  "Tiberius  Smith"  stories, 
which  were  rejected  as  being  too  extravagant. 

Now  I  became  a  gnome  and  delved  deeply  in  excavating 
a  fitting  tomb  for  my  disappointment.  I  swore  off  writing 
for  magazines.  For  two  years  I  had  bombarded  them  with 
out  much  encouragement,  and  yet  had  kept  my  heart  high. 


192  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

But  once  having  broken  in  with  three  sales  the  double  re 
jecting  relegated  me  and  my  hopes  to  the  shelves  of  yesterday. 

From  the  early  winter  of  1904  to  late  Fall  I  allowed  my 
mind  to  remain  fallow.  I  was  content  with  my  newspaper 
work  and  a  steady  sale  of  squibs  and  occasional  signed  stories 
to  the  New  York  Sunday  magazine  supplements.  Then  an 
agent  wrote  me,  having  just  seen  my  three  published  yarns, 
and  I  sent  him  the  two  rejected  ones.  He  promptly  sold 
them  to  Everybody's  and  Munsey's.  The  tide  was  high 
again,  and  writing  for  the  Sunday  papers  seemed  coarse  and 
sordid. 

One  truth  that  Mr.  White  taught  me  I  always  pass  on 
to  beginners.  He  refused  a  rural  story  because  the  hero 
made  a  great  sacrifice  unknown  to  any  of  the  characters. 
Mr.  White  pointed  out  the  necessity  of  some  one  char 
acter  at  least  knowing  the  generous  act — that  it  was  not 
enough  for  the  reader  to  know,  unless  one  wished  to  make 
the  reader  mad.  For  some  time  I  knew  more  than  Mr. 
White,  then  re-wrote  the  ending  along  his  suggestions,  and 
made  a  sale. 


O 


CHANNING  POLLOCK 

f  my  first  writing,  perhaps,  the  less  said  the  better.  It 
was  a  verse,  produced  at  the  age  of  "six,  going  on 
seven,"  that  began: 

"There  has  never  shone  a  sunny  sky  without  some  fleecy 

speck, 

There  has  never  roared  an  ocean  storm  without  some 
fearful  wreck." 

My  family,  including  a  journalist  father  whose  lifetime 
had  been  devoted  to  proving  that  penury  is  the  wages  of  the 
pen,  refused  to  believe  that  such  a  poetic  gem  could  have 
come  from  its  midst.  When  that  skeptical  sire  passed  away, 
eight  years  later,  he  was  still  reading  verse  with  a  view  to 
discovering  my  treasure  trove.  Thus  early  in  my  career 
did  I  stumble  upon  the  charge  of  plagiarism. 


CHANNING   POLLOCK  193 

At  ten,  while  attending  school  in  Prague,  Austria,  I  was 
moved  to  begin  my  first  play. 

It  was  called  "The  Devil's  Daughter,"  and  is  distin 
guished  in  my  memory  chiefly  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  it 
was  indited  upon  a  single  sheet  of  drawing  paper,  some  six 
feet  square.  This  circumstance  was  due  to  my  faulty  Ger 
man,  which,  employed  in  a  stationer's  shop,  was  understood 
as  a  request  for  that  kind  of  paper. 

This  play  was  brought  to  the  attention  of  a  local  dra 
matic  critic,  whose  verdict  differed  in  no  important  respect 
from  those  my  plays  still  elicit  from  gentlemen  of  his  craft. 
Upon  reading  it,  my  father  decided  that  I  ought  to  make  a 
good  soldier,  and  that,  in  due  time,  I  should  be  sent  to  West 
Point. 

The  paternal  demise,  while  we  were  living  in  Central 
America,  put  an  end  to  that  ambitious  plan.  For  the  next 
four  years  I  earned  the  family  living  by  writing  dramatic 
criticisms  for  the  Washington  Post,  the  Washington  Times, 
and  the  New  York  Dramatic  Mirror,  and  press  matter  for 
F.  Ziegfeld,  Jr.,  and  William  A.  Brady. 

Every  penny  I  ever  made  came  from  writing  except  dur 
ing  three  dreadful  days  when,  to  keep  an  insistent  wolf  from 
the  door,  I  pushed  a  truck  on  the  docks  of  the  Joy  Steamship 
Line.  Though  I  had  continued  to  cherish  the  ambition  to 
be  a  dramatist — undiscouraged,  then  as  now,  by  dramatic 
criticism — my  first  play  to  be  produced  was  written  wholly 
by  accident. 

Employed  by  Mr.  Brady,  I  was  press  agent  for  Grace 
George  in  a  piece  called  "Pretty  Peggy."  The  last  act  was 
not  quite  satisfactory,  and  I  had  an  idea  for  a  better  one, 
which  I  turned  out  one  rainy  Sunday  in  Chicago.  Mr. 
Brady  liked  it  sufficiently  to  accept  it  as  part  of  my  press 
work  and  to  substitute  it  for  the  original.  Also,  to  remem 
ber  it  later,  when,  on  the  ground  that  "you  can't  dramatize 
descriptions  of  office  buildings  at  night,"  Augustus  Thomas 
declined  to  accept  Frank  Norris'  novel,  "The  Pit." 

Mr.  Brady  said  I  might  try,  and  I  did.  The  play  pre 
sented  by  Wilton  Lackaye  on  my  twenty-first  birthday  con- 


194  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

tinued  to  be  his  vehicle  four  years,  and  earned  in  the  neigh 
borhood  of  half  a  million  dollars.  Of  this  sum  I  received 
one  thousand  dollars,  in  twenty  weekly  payments  of  fifty 
dollars  each,  with  another  thousand  added,  and  paid  in  the 
same  way,  as  the  result  of  considerable  moral  suasion. 

In  spite  of  that  business  contretemps,  I  regard  my  real 
metier  as  salesmanship.  In  twenty-three  years  of  writing 
from  five  to  twenty-four  hours  a  day,  I  have  never  written 
a  word  that  hasn't  been  sold,  and,  to  persons  acquainted 
with  the  output,  this  must  be  some  testimonial  to  rny  persist 
ence  and  power  of  persuasion. 

ERNEST  POOLE 

I  took  my  first  real  plunge  into  writing  in  the  Fall  of 
1902.  At  Princeton  I  had  written  two  plays  and  a 
number  of  short  stories.  One  came  out  in  The  Nassau 
Lit. 

But  that  was  in  college.  Now  I  was  out  in  the  wide, 
wide  world — which  the  popular  magazines  were  just  be 
ginning  to  "expose."  And  with  a  large  but  vague  idea 
of  getting  into  the  tenements  and  having  a  look  at  life  down 
there,  I  went  to  live  on  the  lower  East  Side;  and  after  a 
few  weeks'  bewildered  drifting  about  I  found  a  story  that 
took  hold  of  my  imagination. 

Down  around  Newspaper  Row  were  several  hundred 
newsboys,  some  not  over  eight  years  old,  who  were  known 
as  the  "All  Nighters."  I  spent  the  best  part  of  a  month 
of  nights  with  the  young  ones.  Breakfast  with  a  six-year- 
old  kid  at  3  a.  m.  Coffee,  doughnuts  and  apple  pie. 
Chinatown  was  close  at  hand.  The  local  undertaker  soon 
became  a  friend  of  mine  and  took  me  into  certain  dives 
where  more  small  urchins  were  employed  by  the  white  girls 
there  as  messenger  boys. 

At  the  end  of  a  month  I  had  my  story. 

I  wrote  it  and  gave  it  to  Leroy  Scott.  Leroy  read  it 
hard  a  number  of  times,  then  clenched  his  jaws  and  sat 
down  with  me  to  a  five-hour  session — in  which  my  news- 


ERNEST    POOLE  195 

boy  article  was  torn  to  shreds  and  put  together.  It  had 
been  formless.  Now  it  had  bones.  I  rewrote  it  two  or  three 
times  and  gave  it  to  The  Century.  Mr.  Gilder  said  he 
wished  he  could  use  it,  "but  we  haven't  any  place  for  it 
now."  Then  I  left  it  at  McClure's — and  they  took  it  the 
next  week. 

I  went  home  for  Christmas — and  found  a  wire  from  Mr. 
Gilder  saying  that  The  Century  could  use  my  article  after 
all. 

McClure's  and  The  Century!  Now  I  knew  I  was  a  great 
writer!  Fiction  for  me!  I  wrote  six  short  stories.  All 
were  rejected.  Back  to  magazine  articles.  .  .  .  My  long 
apprenticeship  had  begun — and  is  still  going  on  and  will  go 
on,  I  imagine,  for  the  rest  of  my  days. 


MARY  BRECHT  PULVER 

My  maiden  effort — or  rather  my  maiden  efforts — they 
were  a  whole  rosebud  garden  of  girls — had  their 
inception  at  such  a  tender  age  that  their  genesis  is 
lost  in  the  mists  of  antiquity;  but  I  think  the  initial  spark 
of  divine  fire  may  have  been  supplied  by  the  appearance  in 
our  library  of  those  photographic  supplements  issued  by 
Harpers'  Weekly  illustrating  occasional  gala  dinners  to 
literary  celebrities. 

As  I  gazed  at  each  pictured  concourse  of  brains  and 
beauty,  I  remember  resolving  that  there  too  would  I 
one  day  shine.  I  would  sit  "about  here,"  wearing  a  "low 
neck  dress,"  with  my  arm  gracefully  drooping  over  the  back 
of  a  chair  "like  this  one,"  or  with  my  hair  frizzed  hand 
somely  and  an  intelligent  smile,  I  would  lean  back  "like  that 
one." 

Mindful  of  the  matrimonial  appanages  present,  I  even 
selected  a  position  for  my  husband.  He  should  sit,  say, 
like  this  "Mrs.  Hope's  Husband,"  with  one  hand  carelessly 
on  the  table  and  his  dress  coat-tails  nicely  streaming  out 
behind.  I  do  not  recall  entertaining  the  least  doubt  as  to 


196  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

my  ability  either  to  become  an  author  or  to  achieve  a  hus 
band.  Nor  indeed — a  greater  feat — having  won  to  the  last 
— to  persuade  him  lightly  into  the  aforesaid  coat-tail.  .  .  . 

Well,  my  childish  confidence  was  not  entirely  misplaced. 
I  am  married  unto  a  husband — and  I  have  been  invited  to 
contribute  to  this  book. 

My  first  published  effort  was  brought  out  by  myself  at 
the  age  of  twelve  in  a  magazine  written,  printed  and  bound 
by  myself — a  very  satisfactory  method  for  an  author.  It 
contained  the  forerunners  of  the  present-day  passionate  edi 
torial  blurbs  anent  its  constributor(s). 

Barring  this  venture  and  a  tale  in  a  school  paper  concern 
ing  a  wretched  female  named  Desdemona  Gray,  kindly  left 
unsmothered  by  the  editor,  I  never  knew  the  gentling  hand 
of  the  compositor  until  after  my  marriage.  Not  that  I 
wasn't  patiently  authoring  all  along  the  way.  But  I  didn't 
particularly  bother  about  getting  published — just  wrote  for 
love  of  it. 

There  were  a  few  things  sent  out  through  these  years. 
Once,  at  sixteen,  a  story  to  The  Youth's  Companion — a 
pretty  good  story,  too — which  was  duly  receipted,  stamped 
and  adjudged  by,  I  gather,  some  thirty  or  forty  readers 
before  it  returned  to  its  suffering  author — without  the  olive 
twig. 

Once,  after  some  years,  I  wrote  a  frightful  and  Zolaesque 
thing  called  "Afternoon  in  the  Almshouse" — I  have  never 
spent  an  afternoon  in  the  Almshouse  (yet) — which  I  foisted 
on  The  American  Magazine.  It  was  Mr.  Albert  Boyden 
who  told  me  "it  was  too  terrible  to  print"  or  words  to  that 
effect.  I  was  quite  proud  of  his  letter — at  first. 

There  were  one  or  two  things  offered  The  Century  and 
rejected — oh,  so  kindly — by  Mr.  Robert  Underwood  John 
son  (never  talk  to  me  about  the  brusquerie  or  impatience 
of  editors)  but  nothing  "took"  until  on  a  day  I  wrote  a 
little  poetic  study  concerning  my  cat  and  my  tea  kettle,  my 
kitchen — pure  figments  of  the  imagination.  I  read  this  to 
my  family  and  they  laughed.  I  had  that  sort  of  family.  I 
laid  the  thing  away,  but  one  day,  taking  it  out  and  reading 


MARY    BRECHT   PULVER  197 

it,  I  sent  it  off  to  The  Independent.  Mr.  Hamilton  Holt 
accepted  it  and  made  me  an  author.  More,  I  received  nine 
dollars  for  it. 

"All  that  for  a  little  poem?"  said  I.  "I  wonder  what  I'd 
get  for  successful  prose." 

So  I  sat  me  down  and  wrote  a  love  story — typed  most 
horribly,  too,  shrouded  like  an  Oriental  bride  in  a  mist  of 
purple  veiling — and  sent  it  off  to  Everybody's.  They  gave 
me  a  hundred  and  fifty  dollars — and  the  world  lost  a 
great  poet. 

Not  only  that.  But  with  my  wicked  mind  on  the  flesh- 
pots — a  disgraceful  complex,  no  matter  what  the  necessity 
— I  said,  the  story  having  required  ten  days  for  writing- 
said  I:  "If  Mary  can  make  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars 
in  ten  days — in  one  month,  which  is  three  times  ten  days, 
she  will  make  three  times  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  or 
four  hundred  and  fifty  dollars,  and  in  one  year,  which  is 
twelve  times  one  month,  she  will  make  twelve  times  four 
hundr — ."  I  hurried  to  get  some  more  paper  and  sat  down 
to  write.  But — arithmetic  was  never  my  strong  point. 

NINA  WILCOX  PUTNAM 

I  early  showed  a  tendency  to  realism  and  the  invaluable, 
to  an  author,  ability  to  pick  the  other  fellow's  brains 
for  fiction  purposes,  and  my  first  story  was  a  one-thou 
sand   word   effort   entitled    "Chickens,"   which   my   father 
rashly  warranted  to  be  original  with  me  and  which  conse 
quently  won  a  first  prize  in  a  New  York  Herald  competi 
tion,  although  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  original  with  the 
old  lady  about  whom  it  was  written. 

I  was  eleven  years  of  age  at  the  time  and  had  never 
heard  the  word  "plagiarism."  Furthermore,  I  do  not  mean 
to  imply  I  copied  something  she  had  written,  but  merely 
wrote  exactly  what  she  had  done. 

The  story  dealt  with  her  habit  of  praying  audibly  and  in 
the  neighbors'  presence  for  anything  she  happened  to  need 
and  then  when  her  prayer  was  finished,  assuring  her  audience 


198  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

that  the  Lord  would  provide.  You  may  guess  that  under 
the  circumstances,  he  usually  did.  The  chickens  from  which 
my  story  took  its  title  were  an  instance  of  the  success  of 
her  method. 

Her  neighbors  were  about  to  move  to  the  city  and  the  old 
lady  prayed  in  their  presence  that  the  Lord  would  send  her 
some  chickens,  some  nice  white  fat  chickens  that  nobody  else 
wanted.  Half  an  hour  later  I  heard  her  calling  to  my 
mother  to  come  over  and  see  the  lovely  chickens  that  the 
Lord  had  provided — miraculously!  We  crossed  the  way  to 
the  old  lady's  home  and  there  admired  three  fat  hens  which 
the  neighbors  had  sent  over  with  their  compliments.  "See 
how  the  Lord  provides!"  said  the  old  lady  thankfully. 
Then  she  regarded  the  creatures  thoughtfully  a  moment 
and  exclaimed,  "I  think  they  might  have  sent  a  rooster!" 

My  next  effort  in  a  literary  way  did  not  come  until  I 
was  a  little  more  than  sixteen  years  of  age  and  it  was  then 
accomplished  in  spite  of  the  uttermost  opposition  on  the  part 
of  my  family. 

My  mother,  in  common  with  most  ladies  of  her  gener 
ation,  considered  that  there  was  something  intrinsically  dis 
graceful  in  a  female  of  the  race  doing  anything  to  earn  a 
living,  even  though  it  were  an  honest  one.  As  for  young 
girls  who  showed  any  inclination  toward  the  arts,  their 
future  was  supposed  to  be  an  abysmal  horror  too  fearful 
for  gentle  folk  to  contemplate. 

In  our  set  a  girl  must  marry  or  be  disgraced;  and  if  she 
was  a  blue  stocking  or  anything  that  faintly  resembled  one, 
her  chance  would  be  small  indeed. 

My  whole  early  training  was  administered  with  a  view 
of  keeping  me  at  the  low  intellectual  level  supposed  to  be 
desirable  for  wives  of  good  standing.  The  fear  that  I  might 
show  some  independence  of  thought  or  action  was  ever  up 
permost  in  my  family's  mind,  and  everything  possible  was 
done  to  discourage  my  writing.  At  one  time,  shortly  after 
the  production  of  "Chickens,"  they  even  went  so  far  as  to 
deprive  me  of  carfare  when  they  found  out  that  I  used  to 
walk  and  spend  the  money  for  pencils  and  paper  with  which 


NINA   WILCOX    PUTNAM  199 

to  produce  the  forbidden  masterpieces.  The  only  wonder 
is  that  after  all  this  struggle  I  did  not  turn  out  to  be  Lady 
Balzac  or  something. 

Crude  and  undesirable  as  it  was  supposed  to  be  for  a  gen 
tlewoman  to  write  or  do  anything  else  "queer"  for  a  liv 
ing,  the  making  of  beds  and  the  washing  of  dishes  in  the 
privacy,  or  shall  we  say  semi-privacy,  of  a  refined  or  poor 
home,  was  o.  k.  But  I  did  not  like  it,  and  becoming  impa 
tient  for  the  freedom  of  matrimony  which  had  not  yet 
reached  me  at  the  age  of  16,  I  actually  managed  to  sneak 
enough  time  to  myself  in  which  to  produce  a  masterpiece 
entitled  "The  Flat  Above,"  which  was  inspired  by  listening 
to  the  sounds  of  footsteps  in  the  apartment  above  ours. 
There  were  no  actual  characters  in  this  story — only  sounds, 
but  it  was  a  pretty  good  story  just  the  same  and  I  sent  it  to 
Street  and  Smith  where  the  late  Robert  Rudd  Whiting,  one 
of  the  ablest  editors  that  America  has  known  (and  not  in 
my  prejudiced  opinion  alone)  saw  sufficient  merit  in  the 
story  to  buy  it  for  Smith's  Magazine. 

How  my  stock  went  up  with  the  family  when  the  check 
for  thirty-five  dollars  arrived!  They  weren't  a  particularly 
mercenary  family  at  that,  but  even  they  were  not  above 
being  impressed  by  the  magic  of  my  being  able  to  procure, 
as  they  thought,  something  for  nothing!  I  had  pulled  thirty- 
five  perfectly  good  dollars  out  of  thin  air,  or  so  it  seemed 
to  them  and  from  that  point  on  my  "queer"  proclivities  were 
encouraged. 

Ever  since  then  writing  has  been  my  chief  source  of  live 
lihood.  The  only  really  queer  thing  about  my  career  is  that 
so  much  striving  should  not  have  produced  a  higher  literary 
standard.  But  I'd  rather  be  a  good  bootblack  than  a  rotten 
tenor ! 


200  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

WILLIAM  MACLEOD  RAINE 


I 


t  was  a  Gadzooks  yarn,  and  it  began  with  a  bucket  of 
blood.     Something  like  this,  say: 

"I  lounged  in  front  of  the  Warwick  tavern,  wiping 
the  blood  from  my  sword.  Inside,  they  were  rushing 
to  and  fro,  some  caring  for  the  wounded  man,  some 
bawling  for  the  surgeon,  all  wildly  excited.  They 
might  have  saved  themselves  the  trouble.  He  would 
be  dead  before  the  sinking  sun  set.  Trust  Eustace 
Blount  for  that.  I  had  not  waited  ten  years  to  miss 
killing  him  when  my  chance  came." 

The  story  rattled  with  swords.  Eyes  glittered  balefully. 
Gauntlets  and  surtouts  and  plumed  hats  were  frequent  as 
telegraph  poles  on  a  railroad  journey.  Kings  and  Earls 
bulked  large  in  it.  In  that  one  short  story  I  wasted  plot 
enough  to  outfit  half  a  dozen  books  respectably.  "The  Luck 
of  Eustace  Blount"  was  a  whale  of  a  story.  I  admitted  it 
to  myself.  A  good  many  editors  were  going  to  be  much 
distressed  when  they  saw  it  in  a  magazine  run  by  the  other 
fellow.  But  that  could  not  be  helped.  I  had  other  stories 
in  my  system.  They  would  have  to  wait  for  these. 

So  I  wrote  "The  End"  and  sent  Eustace  adventuring. 
He  swaggered  into  the  office  of  the  Munsey  magazines  and 
stayed  there.  The  editor  sent  me  a  check  for  twenty-five 
dollars.  The  story  was  only  12,000  words. 

I  have  never  seen  a  piece  of  literature  that  had  for  me 
the  personal  significance  of  that  yarn  when  I  actually  read 
it  on  the  printed  page.  I  went  over  it  a  dozen  times  and 
always  discovered  unexpected  merits.  Little  did  Denver 
suspect  that  the  sallow  youth  walking  down  Sixteenth  Street 
was  a  Great  Author.  A  sorry  little  scrub  of  an  unknown 
I  might  be,  but  I  hugged  the  knowledge  that  when  the  pub 
lic  read  the  current  issue  of  The  Argosy  things  were  going  to 
be  different. 

My  landlady  had  looked  on  me  with  a  speculative  eye. 
She  was  not  quite  sure  whether  I  was  a  bad  investment  or 


WILLIAM    MACLEOD    RAINE  201 

not.  That  Munsey  check  and  subsequent  ones  cheered  her 
immensely. 

The  Imperative  Urge  that  drove  me  to  magazine  writing 
was  connected  with  my  need  to  eat.  It  came  about  this 
way.  The  day  after  the  Maine  was  blown  up  I  presented 
myself  for  enlistment  in  the  First  Washington  Volunteers 
at  Seattle.  A  doctor  discovered  that  my  boilers  were  rick 
ety.  I  migrated  to  Denver,  having  read  that  sunshine  pours 
down  on  that  blessed  city  397  days  a  year.  After  a  few 
weeks  on  the  old  Republican,  reporting  sports,  my  health 
blew  up.  I  was  ordered  to  hold  down  a  porch. 

Since  I  was  stony  broke  it  did  no  harm  to  play  the  hunch 
that  I  was  probably  one  of  the  world's  greatest  writers.  I 
lapped  up  sunshine  and  wore  out  lead  pencils.  Presently, 
that  masterpiece,  "The  Luck  of  Eustace  Blount,"  emerged 
from  my  inner  consciousness. 

Matthew  White,  Jr.  (May  his  shadow  never  grow 
less!)  bought  "The  Luck"  on  its  first  trip  out.  He  did 
more.  He  asked  for  another  and  paid  for  that.  Then  he 
suggested  I  try  a  novelette,  which  later  he  regretfully  re 
fused,  not  on  account  of  lack  of  merit  in  the  story,  but — etc. 

That  first  story  must  be  the  best  I  have  ever  written.  At 
least,  I  have  never  got  so  many  thrills  out  of  any  others. 
There  has  been  a  steady  declension  in  this  line.  Of  late 
years  I  have  read  some  of  my  own  pages  without  any  glow 
of  champagne  in  the  blood. 

Alas,  youth's  a  stuff  will  not  endure. 

OPIE   READ 

Tall,  gaunt,  aspiring  and  broke,  I  had  just  been  spawned 
by   a   shady-nook   college   over   whose   portals   was 
chiseled  the  name  "Neophogen."     It  was  a  learned 
institution  and  so  worshiped  the  extreme  of  antiquity  that 
it  died  under  an  operation  for  Neoplatonism. 

A  professor  had  told  me  that  the  one  thing  in  which 
American  journalism  stood  in  need  was  the  dignity  of 
learned  expression.  He  did  not  object  to  news:  perhaps 


202  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

news  was  essential,  viewed  narrowly;  but  in  even  a  news 
item,  there  should  be  the  dignity  of  scholarship.  "A  classic 
grace,  if  you  understand  me,"  said  the  professor.  "And 
you  have  essayed,  or  rather  I  should  say  that  you  shall  by 
predilection  essay,  to  write  as  a  profession.  I  have  heard 
you  express  appreciation  of  the  quick  gestures  of  literature 
but  I  do  not  believe  that  you  are  yet  ripe  enough  in  scholar 
ship  to  estimate  properly  the  statutes  of  permanent  thought. 
But  go  forth  and  conquer." 

This  sounds  like  a  travesty  but  it  isn't.  It  is  more  nearly 
true  than  many  a  thing  set  off  with  an  affidavit.  A  fancy 
must  be  aesthetic,  but  fact  may  be  ridiculous. 

Off  I  trudged,  searching  for  the  sensitive  nerves  of  the 
journalistic  world,  having  been  told  that  this  was  the  way 
to  find  the  ultimate  muscle  of  literature. 

My  equipment  was  brief,  a  carpet-bag  containing  two 
shirts,  one  when  out  on  a  clothes  line  having  been  chewed 
by  a  calf;  but  as  this  involved  a  part  of  the  garment  sup 
posed  to  be  screened  from  public  view,  it  was  not  a  matter  of 
acute  distress. 

Ah,  but  there  was  within  that  receptacle  something  more 
important  than  a  shirt — an  unabridged  dictionary — prize  for 
a  competitive  essay  whose  mummied  title  I  have  happily  for 
gotten.  Not  much  of  an  armament  for  fight — two  shirts 
and  a  dictionary,  but  out  of  the  carpet-bag  arose  the  sling 
of  spirit  and  with  it  I  would  pebble  all  opposition. 

First  encounter — a  newspaper  office,  Nashville,  Tennes 
see.  Opposite  in  the  tilt,  an  oldish  fellow  who  had  worked 
under  Greeley  on  the  New  York  Tribune.  He  was  not  un 
kind.  His  blue  eyes  were  rather  sympathetic  and  his  voice 
was  as  soft  as  the  tones  of  a  dentist  in  his  soothing  preface. 
But  he  hurt  me.  He  said  that  a  row  of  collegiate  sheep 
skins  as  long  as  the  Texas  frontier  wouldn't  impress  him. 

"What  we  want  is  not  learning,  but  inspired  ignorance," 
he  said. 

And  as  my  ignorance  was  not  inspired,  but  heavy  and  low 
of  jaw,  I  left  him. 


OPIE    READ  203 

Now  began  search  for  work  in  hard  and  foot-sore  earnest. 
I  had  learned  to  set  type;  in  truth  as  a  compositor  I  had 
worked  my  way  through  college  on  a  magazine  which  in  no 
degree  peppery  bore  the  name  of  Attic  Salt.  It  was  edited 
by  an  active  scholar  who  could  leap  upward  and  pop  his 
heels  together  twice  in  the  air.  As  a  speller  he  could  not 
have  held  his  own  with  Webster,  but  he  played  a  fiddle  with 
a  free  and  improvising  hand. 

Times  were  hard  and  work  was  slack.  From  town  to 
town  I  tramped,  now  beyond  the  hope  that  the  newspapers 
wanted  essays  and  ignorant  allusions  to  Greek  philosophy. 
I  was  looking  for  type  to  edge  up.  One  dark  and  rainy 
evening  I  reached  a  small  town  in  western  Tennessee. 
Having  walked  all  day  I  was  hungry  and  tired.  But  in 
the  drizzle  of  the  street  I  found  no  one  to  invite  me  to  sup 
per  or  to  sit  down.  The  place  was  as  dark  as  a  war  zone 
when  bombs  are  expected  to  drop. 

Feeling  along  a  wall  I  found  a  doorway — a  flight  of 
stairs. 

Up  I  crept  with  my  dictionary,  my  shirts  having  been 
stolen  from  a  bush  whereon  they  had  been  spread  to  dry. 

Now — a  long  narrow  corridor,  a  door  yielding  to  a  slight 
push;  and  in  I  went,  breathing  the  fuzzy  nap  of  the  musty 
dark. 

I  struck  a  match  and  looked  about — a  small  court-room 
with  a  bar  of  justice  and  a  big  box  of  saw-dust  to  accom 
modate  the  tobacco-spitting  lawyers.  There  was  more  than 
half  of  a  candle  on  a  desk  and  I  lighted  it — sheets  of  paper 
scattered  about  and  I  gathered  them — there  having  arisen  a 
brighter  flame  than  candle  light — the  impulse  to  scribble 
something  not  of  the  ancients  but  of  my  own  experience. 

Then,  forgetting  my  weariness,  I  sat  down  to  work, 
wrote  a  sketch  entitled  "A  Cross  Tie  Pilgrimage." 

When  it  had  been  completed  I  read  the  penciled  lines, 
astonished  at  truth  and  at  the  ease  with  which  it  had  been 
told.  And  how  delightful!  A  bed  was  here  provided,  a 
bench ;  and  upon  it  I  stretched  out  and  slept  till  day.  From 
a  kind  soul  standing  fat  in  his  doorway  I  borrowed  a  stamp, 


204  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

an  envelope,  a  pen;  and  on  his  counter  (elbowing  his  cab 
bages  out  of  the  way),  I  addressed  my  "inspiration"  to  the 
New  York  Sunday  Mercury,  having  requested  that  if  the 
sketch  should  find  favor  please  send  check  to  Bolivar,  Ten 
nessee. 

I  expected  to  reach  that  town  within  three  weeks,  not  on 
account  of  its  remoteness  but  from  the  fact  that  I  should  be 
forced  to  change  trains  many  times  before  reaching  there. 
Out  I  rode  on  a  freight  about  ten  miles,  and  then  upon 
urgent  invitation  proceeded  to  walk.  But  I  laughed 
tenderly,  a  great  hope  having  buoyed  my  heart.  Now  I  had 
something  to  look  forward  to;  and  about  the  dome  of  the 
court-house  at  Bolivar  I  reached  forward  and  hung  a 
wreath.  And  then  in  the  night  in  a  corn-crib  I  woke  out  of 
a  sweating  dream.  I  had  reached  Bolivar  and  the  Mayor 
himself  had  come  up  maliciously  to  return  to  me  my  manu 
script. 

But  the  next  night  there  came  a  vision  of  joy — five  dol 
lars  from  The  Mercury;  and  the  village  band  was  serenading 
me  when  I  woke — to  hear  the  lowing  of  the  cows  in  the 
barnyard. 

At  last  I  came  within  sight  of  the  town.  Was  that  the 
sun  glinting  the  court-house  dome?  No,  my  wreath!  But 
as  I  drew  nearer  the  wreath  began  to  fade,  the  red  of  the 
rose  yellowing  with  the  hue  of  the  dandelion,  the  larkspur 
ashen.  Without  a  tremor  I  could  have  contemplated  a  busi 
ness  transaction,  its  success  or  failure,  and  could  with  some 
degree  of  courage  have  gone  into  a  fight;  but  now  I  was 
tremulous  as  I  stood  against  a  telegraph  pole  to  let  the  mail 
train  pass — to  throw  off,  perhaps,  a  bag  containing  my  hope 
ful  offering.  Now  in  startling  clearness  I  could  see  my  rude 
sketch,  sprawled  on  soiled  paper.  Back  to  me  came  the 
words,  once  so  throbbing  with  life,  now  so  meaningless  and 
still. 

On  I  walked,  and  would  have  passed  the  town  but  was 
too  tired  to  go  further.  Every  one  looked  at  me  suspiciously 
as  I  scuttered  along  the  street.  Every  one  knew  that  my 
vanity  had  been  rebuked.  A  lout  laughed  as  he  passed  me, 


OPIE    READ  205 

and  I  turned  and  gazed  after  him,  believing  it  a  Christian 
act  were  I  to  heave  a  brick  at  him.  I  came  upon  a  cripple 
dragging  himself  along,  and  I  mused  that  his  essay  had  been 
returned  and  had  crushed  him. 

Out  of  a  doorway  girls  came  giggling  over  letters — the 
postoffice — and  I  sat  down  on  a  box  to  wait  for  the  town  to 
get  its  mail.  The  shadows  stretched  themselves  out  to  rest, 
birds  began  to  tweet  their  vespers  in  a  locust  tree.  It  was 
time  to  receive  my  doom.  In  I  went.  The  place  was 
deserted.  No — a  man  peeped  at  me  through  his  battlement. 
Then  I  braved  myself  to  inquire  if  there  were  a  letter  for 
me.  He  grinned  at  me.  He  was  a  humorous  cuss. 

"Letter  for  you?  How  do  I  know?  What's  your  name, 
if  you  happened  to  bring  one  along  with  you?" 

"Oh,  I  beg  your  pardon.  Yes,  I  think  I  have  one  about 
me  somewhere." 

I  told  him;  he  grinned,  and  began  to  look  over  a  handful 
of  letters,  sickening  me  with  his  whistling  deliberation. 

"That  it?"  And  he  threw  off  one,  my  name  on  it;  and 
in  my  clutch  it  thrilled  me  with  its  flimsiness — too  thin  for 
my  sketch.  Open  I  tore  it  and  there  flashed  a  check  for  six 
dollars.  I  turned,  after  taking  hold  of  something  to  keep 
my  balance,  and  handed  him  the  check  and  the  few  words 
that  accompanied  it. 

"You  can  see  that  this  is  all  right.  I  wish  you'd  cash 
it  for  me." 

He  looked  at  the  check,  whistling.  "Well,  I  guess  you 
need  it.  All  right — endorse  it  and  I'll  give  you  the  money." 

I  thought  that  he  meant  that  I  should  go  out  and  get 
endorsements;  and  sadly  I  confessed  that  not  knowing  any 
one  in  town  I  could  not  do  it. 

He  roared,  looking  about  as  if  he  hoped  that  there  might 
be  some  one  near  to  enjoy  the  joke  with  him.  Can't  endorse 
it  because  you  don't  know  any  one!  I  wouldn't  have  be 
lieved  it.  But  you  can  write  your  name  on  the  back  of  the 
check,  can't  you?" 

"Oh,  yes.  Is  that  what  you  call  endorsing?  I'll  write 
my  name  all  over  it." 


206  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

"Once  is  enough  .  .  .  Here  you  are,"  and  he  gave 
me  six  silver  dollars.  Nearby  was  a  restaurant,  a  tumble 
down  place,  but  now  a  palace.  In  I  went,  dropping  my 
dictionary  on  the  floor.  Up  came  a  darkey  and  asked  for 
my  order,  looking  at  me  suspiciously. 

"Yas,  sah,  dat's  er  fine  order.  But  when  a  pusson  dat 
ain't  er  citizen  o'  de  country  make  er  order  lak  dat,  we  mus' 
inquire  erbout  de  wharwif." 

Hereupon  I  slammed  down  my  silver  and  he  ducked  into 
servility.  Just  as  he  had  spread  the  meal — and  it  was 
bountiful — I  heard  some  one  walking  toward  me  and,  look 
ing  about,  I  encountered  the  smile  of  a  man  whom  I  had 
never  seen  before,  but  I  knew  that  he  was  a  tramp  printer. 
His  short  beard  was  red,  and  about  his  scarlet  lips  played  a 
hungry  flame.  He  did  not  speak.  He  dropped  his  wallet, 
his  stick  across  it,  and  drawing  up  a  chair  sat  down  at  my 
table,  proceeding  vigorously  to  help  himself.  After  a  time 
I  ordered  more,  and  he  continued  to  eat  in  silence.  Then 
he  leaned  back,  full  to  the  gills,  and  drew  a  long  breath. 
He  looked  at  me  and  spoke  for  the  first  time:  "Now  where 
do  we  go?"  .  .  . 

I  have  often  thought  of  that  scene,  as  vivid  now  as  in  its 
original  pose,  many  years  ago.  How  resonant  are  his  words, 
and  how  illustrative.  .  .  .  After  pleasure,  after  sorrow, 
after  life —  "Where  do  we  go  now?" 


LOWELL  OTUS  REESE 

It's  more  or  less  a  shot  in  the  dark,  but  I  think  the  first 
thing  of  mine  that  ever  appeared  in  print  was  published 
in  my  cousin's  paper,  The  Fontanelle  (Iowa)  Observer. 
It  was  brow  stuff.     Heavy,  like  a  noodle.    It  was  so  mourn 
ful  that,  although  it  has  been  years  and  years,  I've  never 
been  able  to  forget  it.     Here's  the  first  verse: 


LOWELL   OTUS    REESE  207 

"Now,  while  Nature  seems  all  dying, 
While  the  winter  winds  are  sighing 
And  the  voice  of  the  dead  summer  from  the  drifted 

leaves  is  crying, 

O'er  the  grave  where  Hope  lies  sleeping, 
Fall  the  tears  my  heart  is  weeping ; 
For  I  know  that  soon  the  snow  above  my  own  brow 
will  be  flying." 

I  was  only  twelve  years  old,  but  you  see  I  had  already 
doped  it  out  that  this  life  was  going  to  be  a  pretty  tough 
bird. 

You  know,  when  he  is  twelve  or  thirteen  years  old  and 
feels  the  first  twinge  of  senility  creep  over  him,  the  shock 
of  the  realization  turns  him  cold.  He  had  thought  life  a 
fairly  cheery  proposition  up  to  that  time;  and  then,  all  of 
a  sudden,  he  sees  it  for  what  it  is — a  cold  gluey  gob  of  noth 
ing  in  particular,  made  up  of  one  darned  thing  after  another. 
The  contemplation  makes  him  sick,  like  he'd  made  a  mistake 
and  swallowed  a  sour  jellyfish.  So  first  thing  he  does  is 
to  break  out  in  a  cold  sweat  of  graveyard  literature. 

But  I  must  have  cheered  up  a  trifle  when  I  wrote  the 
second  verse. 

"Murmuring  mortal,  do  you  know 
That  'neath  all  this  winter's  snow 
Germs  of  Spring  are  lying  waiting  for  the  Summer's 

trump  to  blow? 

Thus  it  may  be  we  are  waiting 
While  some  awful  Plan  is  fating 

Mortal   lives   and   mortal   destinies — with   hardship   for 
the  snow." 

Didn't  I  say  it  was  brow  stuff?  A  twelve-year-old  Hoo- 
sier  kid  reeling  off  that  kind  of  dope  and  never  straining  a 
differential  or  getting  a  hot  bearing.  Who  says  a  kid  loves 
kid  books!  Pooh  pooh!  Yes,  I  said  pooh  pooh!  Mother 
Goose  for  Grandpa,  Oliver  Optic  for  mature  minds  and 
take  Daddy  to  the  circus  for  a  good  time;  but  if  you  want 


208  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

to  make  a  hit  with  the  fair-browed  giant  who  has  just 
crawled  out  of  his  cradle  with  the  grim  determination  to 
take  this  poor  fish  of  a  world  by  the  neck  and  shake  it 
till  its  teeth  rattles,  give  him  something  to  chew  on. 

Yes,  sir,  believe  one  who  knows  all  about  it;  they  can't 
come  across  too  hot  for  him.  Thanatopsis  will  barely  get 
over.  Maybe,  later  on,  when  he  is  a  careworn  man  of 
seventeen  or  so  he'll  develop  his  normal  taste  and  consider 
Nick  Carter  one  of  The  Six  Best  Sellers;  but  while  he's  in 
pin  feathers  he  wants  his  literature  to  have  a  kick  in  it. 

I'm  pretty  sure  the  above  verses  were  my  maiden  effort. 
However,  it  lingers  vaguely  in  my  recollection  of  those  days 
that  a  five-act  Tragedy  struggled  for  the  honor.  A  few 
lines  of  that  great  work  float  back  to  me  through  the  years. 

.     .     .    Age. 

Steals  o'er  us  like  a  frost.    We  know  not  when 
Nor  whence  it  came.    'Twas  not — it  is.    Old  Time 
Touches  us  all  unknown,  his  deadly  stroke 
Softened  to  a  caress ;  till  in  surprise 
One  day  we  pause  and,  looking  upward,  say 
"Lo,  I  am  old!" 

Thenceforth  throughout  our  lives 
There  runs  a  vein  of  sadness. 

See?  Still  feeling  my  poor,  doddering  twelve-year-old 
frame  bowing  nearer  and  nearer  the  earth!  Age  was  the 
motif,  though  I  think  there  was  also  a  plot  .... 

Yes — I  get  it  dimly.  There  was  an  ambitious  bird  named 
Caesar  or  something,  and  he  got  a  lot  of  the  boys  together  and 
used  the  strong  arm  on  a  guy  named  Pompey.  Maybe  it 
wasn't  Caesar,  either,  but  that  doesn't  matter.  I  forget  just 
what  the  fuss  was  about,  too;  but,  anyway,  I've  a  hazy 
idea  that  Pompey  had  promised  the  bootlegging  graft  to  this 
other  fellow,  and  then  after  election  he  slipped  a  hot  card 
to  Caesar's  rival  who  ran  a  blind-pig  down  by  the  water 
front.  And  when  the  blow-off  came  this  Pompey  effect 
wound  up  at  the  bottom  of  the  ruction  with  a  big  flat  foot 


LOWELL   OTUS    REESE  209 

in  his  face  and  his  family  waited  dinner  for  him  for  two 
hours  and  a  half . 

But  that  was  all  dead  wood,  of  course.  For  me  the  main 
show  was  the  Old  Age  grief.  I  twangled  that  string  every 
time  I  got  half  a  chance.  All  through  the  five  acts. 

But  say:  Isn't  it  human  nature?  We  begin  to  yell  long 
before  trouble  starts  our  way.  We  think  we're  the  first  to 
see  it,  too.  Old  stuff — but  we've  been  doing  it  ever  since 
Adam  had  his  first  tooth  pulled. 

People  have  been  getting  old  for  quite  a  spell,  now.  But 
the  minute  a  kid  begins  to  realize  that  some  day  he'll  have 
false  teeth  and  a  hairy  mole  on  his  nose  he  takes  the  mo 
mentous  news  and  breaks  it  to  an  astounded  world.  For 
even  the  mildest  precocity  manifests  itself  in  melancholy 
blank  verse  and  a  passionate  denunciation  of  Age. 

By  all  of  which  I  mean  to  convey  the  suggestion  that, 
judging  from  my  Maiden  Effort,  if  your  kid  has  literary  in 
stincts,  and  you  want  to  make  him  happy,  present  him  with 
a  tombstone  with  green  mold  on  it  and  he'll  make  Bill 
Shakespeare  curl  up  like  a  woolly  worm. 

ALICE  HEGAN  RICE 

In  my  maiden  effort  in  literature  I  claim  the  distinction 
of  having  broken  the  record  in  the  use  of  prose  if  not 
poetic  license.     In  the  first  paragraph   I   managed   to 
achieve  six  statements  that  were  not  true.    It  ran  as  follows : 

"To  begin  with  I  am  a  typical  old  maid,  living 
alone  in  a  large  city,  possessing  two  cozy  rooms,  a 
cat  and  some  books,  and  living  a  happy,  contented 
life;  but  occasionally  I  indulge  in  dreams  and  wonder- 
ings  as  to  what  would  have  been  my  fate  had  I  chosen 
the  more  hazardous  path  of  matrimony." 

Now,  at  the  time  I  wrote  those  lines  I  was  a  school  girl, 
one  of  a  large  family,  living  in  a  small  city,  possessing  no 
cat,  and  giving  no  thought  whatever  to  "the  hazardous  path 


210  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

of  matrimony."  Having  just  read  Ik  Marvel's  "Reveries 
of  a  Bachelor" — I  can  still  recall  the  thrill  of  those  lines 
"Love  is  a  flame;  how  a  flame  brightens  a  man's  habitation!" 
— I  decided  to  write  as  a  school  theme  a  companion  piece  to 
it  and  call  it  "Reveries  of  a  Spinster." 

The  little  commendation  of  my  English  teacher  on  the 
margin  of  my  composition  was  the  match  that  set  fire  to  the 
heap  of  literary  aspirations  that  had  been  accumulating  since 
I  was  old  enough  to  hold  a  pencil. 

Without  taking  any  one  into  my  confidence  I  sent  my 
composition,  unsigned,  to  the  Louisville  Courier-Journal. 
Even  at  this  late  date  it  is  a  matter  of  gratification  to  me 
that  I  launched  my  own  small  craft  without  asking  for  a 
friendly  push  from  Marse  Henry,  in  whose  home  I  was  a 
frequent  visitor. 

For  several  days  I  waited  anxiously  to  see  what  would 
happen.  As  usual,  it  was  the  unexpected.  "The  Reveries 
of  a  Spinster"  was  not  only  printed  as  a  serious  contribution 
but  was  immediately  followed  by  an  indignant  protest  from 
"A  Married  Woman."  That  was  the  start  of  a  spirited 
controversy  that  raged  for  some  weeks  between  the  married 
and  the  unmarried  who  voiced  their  opinions  from  various 
parts  of  the  state.  All  of  which  provided  daily  amusement 
for  a  group  of  school  girls  who  read  the  articles  at  recess, 
and  shrieked  with  glee  over  the  caustic  references  to  the 
"cynical  old  maid"  who  had  begun  the  discussion. 

Having  found  it  thus  easy  "to  start  something"  with  my 
pen,  I  continued  my  efforts  from  time  to  time  with  varying 
success,  but  never  ventured  further  than  the  comic  papers 
until  ten  years  later  when  I  plucked  up  courage  to  send 
my  first  long  story  to  a  publisher.  The  result  was  the 
publication  of  "Mrs.  Wiggs  of  the  Cabbage  Patch,"  and 
the  same  year  that  found  me  definitely  started  on  my  career 
as  an  author  found  me  also  a  happy  adventurer  on  what  I 
had  once  regarded  as  "the  hazardous  path  of  matrimony." 


CALE   YOUNG   RICE  211 

CALE  YOUNG  RICE 

Maiden  effort?  Well,  if  I  must,  I'll  confess  that  in 
adolescence  I  was  a  larva  who  had  not  fed  on  verse 
and  who  had  no  idea  of  being  metamorphosed  into 
a  poet.  From  this  athletic,  love-enamored  stage  of  existence, 
I  changed  into  a  student  of  Philosophy,  under  William 
James,  and  meant  only  to  spin  a  wholly  new  and  convincing 
theory  of  the  Universe.  The  metamorphosis  continued, 
however,  irresistibly,  despite  the  dark  shapes  of  certain  dire 
protest  and  finally  the  result  was  achieved — a  result  as 
strange  as  if  a  tadpole  had  turned  into  a  nightingale. 

Yet  the  outcome  must  have  been  more  manifest  to  others, 
for  I  was  accused  of  writing  poetry  long  before  I  did.  As 
the  Universe  indubitably  needed  solving,  this  was  somewhat 
to  my  disgust.  But  my  Cambridge  friends  only  shook  their 
heads,  and  when  a  chair  of  English  Literature  was  offered 
me  in  a  small  Southern  college,  and  at  the  same  time  another 
offer  came  to  teach  Philosophy,  they  saw  my  finish. 

Don't  fancy  however  I  had  never  written  a  verse  up  to 
this  time. 

Once,  lured  by  a  lesson  in  Physiology,  I  committed  some 
lines  on  the  "hirsute  integument"  a  bald-headed  man  lacks; 
and  again  I  wrote  on  the  subject  of  "prayer,"  with  an  in 
tention  far  from  humorous.  Both  these  effusions,  it  is  need 
less  to  say,  have  gone  the  way  to  destruction,  together  with 
some  six  hundred  more  written  since  but  found  unworthy  of 
print.  Posterity  therefore,  has  something  to  be  grateful  for. 

Accepting  the  English  chair  I  spoke  of  meant,  naturally, 
a  surrender  to  Poetry,  and  that  siren  has  led  me  by  the  nose 
ever  since.  She  would  not  so  much  as  permit  me  a  mild 
flirtation  with  Prose  for  many  long  years,  but  continuously 
presented  me  with  offspring — among  the  earlier  of  which, 
it  is  interesting  to  remember,  were  certain  free  verse  experi 
ments  such  as  young  poets  of  today  delight  in  putting  forth. 
My  nightmares  are  yet  haunted  by  the  memory  of  the  in 
adequacy  of  that  first  volume  of  brain-children.  But  I  com 
mitted  infanticide  as  rigorously  as  I  could* 


212  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

Of  success,  the  first  taste  came  when  Henry  Tyrrell,  edit 
ing  Leslie's,  accepted  a  group  of  my  lyrics  at  one  time.  I 
immediately  decided  that  Parnassus  was  a  mole-hill — only 
to  come  to  the  later  conclusion  that  no  poet  ever  really 
reaches  its  peak  by  the  magazine  route.  Never,  however, 
shall  I  cease  to  thrill  at  the  thought  of  Henry  Tyrrell's  letter 
sent  in  accepting  those  poems.  It  told  me  that  Henry  James 
and  William  Dean  Howells  were  also  contributors  to  a 
number  of  the  magazine  which  would  contain  one  of  the 
poems,  but  that  my  lines  were,  to  him,  worth  all  the  rest 
of  the  periodical  put  together!  Blessed  are  such  dews,  to 
the  young,  from  the  editorial  gods! 

But  there;  the  jade  poetry  is  calling  me,  as  you  see,  and  I 
must  go. 

P.  S.     She  didn't  really  want  me  after  all.     It  was  mere 
curiosity  to  know  what  I  was  doing  with  Prose. 


LAURA  E.  RICHARDS 

By  far  the  easiest  thing  for  an  author  to  do,  in  response 
to  a  request  for  a  maiden  effort  is  to  send  one  of  those 
Daisy  Ashfordings  of  which  every  author  has  been 
guilty. 

My  own  concerned  a  "Marion  Gray,  a  lovely  girl  of 
thirteen,"  the  youngest  daughter  of  "a  celebrated  noble 
man  in  great  favor  with  the  king."  She  was  stolen  by  the 
gypsies.  After  five  years,  when  the  new  king  was  sitting  on 
his  throne  condemning  a  band  of  gypsies,  one  young  girl  stood 
with  downcast  eyes  before  him  and,  when  sentenced,  raised 
her  dark  flashing  eyes  upon  the  king. 

Then— "a  piercing  shriek  is  heard,  the  crown  and  sceptre 
roll  down  the  steps  of  the  throne,  and  Marion  Gray  is 
clasped  in  her  father's  arms!" 

As  for  my  first  published  work: 

I  made  my  literary  debut  in  St.  Nicholas  in  the  goodly 
company  of  John  Ames  Mitchell,  founder  and  for  so  many 
years  proprietor  and  editor  of  Life.  "Johnny"  Mitchell  was 


LAURA    E.    RICHARDS  213 

at  that  time  a  young  architect  working  in  the  same  office 
with  my  husband,  that  of  Messrs.  War  and  Van  Brunt. 
The  two  were  warm  friends  and  "Johnny"  Mitchell  was 
often  at  our  home.  I  was  then  (the  early  '70's)  a  young 
mother  making  nonsense  songs  for  my  babies  and  crooning 
them  to  more  or  less  tuneful  airs  which  were  born  with  the 
songs. 

I  think  it  was  my  husband  who  first  suggested  that 
Johnny  should  illustrate  some  of  my  jingles.  He  took  a 
parcel  of  them  home  and  returned  a  week  later,  bringing 
the  pictures  of  "The  Shark"  "Little  John  Bottlejohn,"  etc., 
which  delighted  a  generation  of  St.  Nicholas  boys  and  girls. 
We  sent  our  joint  productions  to  kind  Mrs.  Mary  Mapes 
Dodge,  then  editor-in-chief  of  St.  Nicholas,  and  were  most 
warmly  received. 

Under  the  wing  of  the  children's  saint,  therefore,  we  both 
made  our  bow.  For  quite  a  number  of  years  we  continued 
to  work  more  or  less  together,  I  sending  him  a  rhyme  now 
and  then,  he  occasionally  despatching  a  picture  for  me  to 
furnish  words.  Increasing  years  and  varying  cares  broke  up 
the  delightful  partnership  of  work,  but  the  three  of  us  were 
always  warm  friends. 

This  should,  I  suppose,  be  called  my  maiden  effort.  I 
might  add  a  word  about  one  of  my  early  prose  efforts, 
"Captain  January,"  a  little  story  which,  after  being  rejected 
by  every  publisher  of  repute  in  this  country  and  by  several 
in  England,  at  last  fell  into  the  friendly  hands  of  Mr.  Dana 
Estes  and  had  some  little  success. 

GRACE  S.  RICHMOND 

"f  •  ^  he  Flowing  Shoestring"  was  the  title  of  my  first 

I        marketable  story.     The  probable  reason  why  my 

first  editor  (by  that  time  very  much  Americanized) 

warmed  to  it  was  that  I  really  had  written  it  from  life — 

out  of  the  jeers  of  my  family.     I  had  been  trying  to  write 

for  a  long  time,  but  until  it  occurred  to  me  to  introduce 

into  a  tale  certain  earmarks  of  "the  genius" — as  she  is  still 

called  in  derision  by  her  friends — I  didn't  succeed. 


214  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

I  was  a  genius — of  sorts.  Ten  minutes  before  it  was  time 
to  leave  the  house  for  the  theatre  I  could  pin  the  trimming 
on  a  newly  conceived  hat  and  sally  confidently  forth.  If 
now  and  again  a  feminine  acquaintance  inquired:  "What 
is  that  hanging  down  over  your  left  ear?"  (those  were  days 
of  snugness  in  hat  construction,  and  something  dangling 
over  the  left  ear  denoted  loose  ends,  not  fashion)  I  merely 
tucked  whatever  was  detached  up  under  the  brim  and  went 
serenely  on.  My  right  shoestring  did  come  untied  oftener 
than  other  people's — they  said  it  was  another  sign  of  brain 
power. 

In  brief,  when  I  was  at  last  inspired  to  make  my  heroine 
just  such  another  irresponsible  creature  as  myself,  sowing 
gloves  and  handkerchiefs  right  and  left,  catching  her  heel 
in  ripping  skirt  hems,  saying  and  doing  the  wrong  thing 
everywhere,  yet  somehow  being  able  to  laugh  herself  back 
into  other  people's  good  graces — then,  and  not  till  then,  did 
the  editor  look  my  way. 

But,  alas! — as  I  hadn't  understood  what  it  was  that  had 
caught  his  eye,  in  the  very  next  tale  I  returned  to  reliance 
on  my  own  lively  imagination  rather  than  on  anything  I 
had  ever  seen,  heard  or  done,  and  therefore  immediately 
missed  fire  again.  It  took  me  a  good  while  to  discover  that 
one  really  must  know  a  little  something  about  that  of  which 
one  attempts  to  write. 

The  principal  reason,  however,  why  my  memory  of  that 
maiden  effort  is  still  vivid,  lies  in  the  humiliation  of  the 
experience  which  followed  immediately  upon  the  arrival  of 
the  princely  payment  for  the  "Shoestring."  With  that 
twenty-five  dollars  descended  upon  me  that  peculiar  madness 
which  seems  to  be  enclosed  in  the  envelope  with  first  checks. 

The  magnificent  dark  oak  "bedroom  suite"  in  the  window 
of  the  village  furniture  shop  was  marked  "$80.00."  One 
could  barely  buy  its  noble  expanse  of  mirror  for  that  sum 
now.  I  had  long  coveted  it  for  my  guest-room  when  the 
fateful  check  came  in.  The  purchase  of  the  splendid 
"suite"  became  not  merely  a  possibility,  it  appeared  to  me 


GRACE    S.    RICHMOND  215 

in  the  light  of  a  duty.  I  was  a  wage-earner  like  my  hus 
band,  who  practised  medicine.  Why  should  I  not  put  my 
shoulder  to  the  wheel  and  help  him  with  necessary  expenses 
—like  the  purchase  of  that  furniture? 

I  flew  downtown  and  ordered  it  sent  home  at  once — on 
the  installment  basis.  I  moved  the  cheap  and  varnishy  old 
set  out  of  the  guest-room,  and  when  my  husband  came  home 
I  led  him  up  to  see  the  new  one,  awaiting  his  delight.  I 
remember  my  heart  beat  very  irregularly  indeed  as  his  eye 
fell  upon  it.  He  was  ever  a  man  of  an  unsympathetic 
practicality  in  such  matters. 

"What  was  the  matter  with  the  old  one?"  he  demanded. 

"Oh,  it  was  so  cheap  looking,"  I  explained.  "This — 
why  this  is  a  wonder!" 

"How  much  did  it  cost?" 

"I  paid  for  it  with  my  story,"  I  told  him  proudly.  "That 
is — I  shall  finish  paying  for  it  when  I  have  written  one  or 
two  more." 

He  was  a  good  deal  impressed  with  my  having  sold  the 
story,  but  somehow  that  didn't  seem  to  cover  the  ground 
with  him. 

"You  should  have  waited  till  you  had  all  the  money  in 
hand,"  he  said  sternly. 

"Well,  but  someone  else  would  have  bought  the  set,"  I 
countered  wildly. 

He  shook  his  head.  "My  motto  has  always  been :  'Don't 
buy  a  thing  till  you  can  pay  for  it.'  "  Then  he  walked 
away. 

I  viewed  myself  in  the  noble  mirror  again  and  again,  but 
a  change  seemed  to  have  fallen  upon  it.  It  now  looked 
strangely  overgrown,  as  if  it  would  take  a  good  many 
checks  to  pay  for  it.  The  inevitable  tragedy  followed.  As 
the  "bedroom  suite"  loomed  larger  and  larger  in  its  im- 
pressiveness,  in  inverse  ratio  my  ability  to  earn  checks  shrank 
to  the  vanishing  point.  My  editor  refused  to  be  interested 
in  me  again.  Other  editors  seemed  to  take  their  cue  from 
him.  I  couldn't  earn  a  copper  cent, 


216  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

The  first  installment  came  due.  My  husband  paid  it — 
not  hesitating  to  state  again,  and  in  still  sterner  tones,  what 
his  motto  had  always  been.  He  continued  to  furnish  me 
with  the  motto  from  time  to  time,  as  he  paid  further  in 
stallments.  Even  when  the  last  one  was  completed  he  didn't 
entirely  forget  to  recall  the  motto  to  my  mind. 

By  the  time  our  children  were  old  enough  to  enjoy  the 
recital  they  learned  from  both  father  and  mother  that  the 
guest-room  furniture  had  been  bought  with  the  first  money 
that  mother  had  earned  all  by  herself.  Cheerful  grins  across 
the  table,  over  their  heads,  bore  witness  to  the  altered  feelings 
with  which  we  had  come  to  view  the  transaction. 

In  all  the  years  which  have  followed  the  historic  "bed 
room  suite"  has  stood  in  our  guest-room.  Other  house 
furnishings  have  come  and  gone,  but  not  the  massive  mirror. 
Less  heartless  editors  than  that  first  one  have  viewed  their 
shaven  or  unshaven  faces  in  its  glorious  expanse,  little  guess 
ing  how  significant  or  how  fitting  was  its  service  to  them. 
But  somehow  my  husband,  though  a  generous  man  (when 
he  forgets  to  mention  his  lifelong  motto),  has  never  cared 
for  the  guest-room  furniture.  Nor  I  for  the  memory  of  my 
maiden  effort. 


HENRY  MILNER  RIDEOUT 

My  memories  of  this  kind  of  thing  are  vague.    When 
not  less  than  thirteen  years  old  and  not  more  than 
seventeen,  I  seem  to  have  written  a  narrative  of 
something  that  had  somehow  to  do  with  the  burning  of  a 
house  or  stable,  by  the  light  of  which  two  strange  characters 
fought  in  the  snow. 

It  was  truth,  not  fiction :  a  real  fire,  and  a  real  fight.  One 
of  the  combatants  lived  in  a  place  called  Hog  Alley.  The 
rest  is  forgotten,  except  the  two  instigating  friends  who 
thought  this  product  rather  droll — and  the  bare  wintry  look 
of  it  all  in  print. 


AMELIE   RIVES  217 

AMELIE  RIVES 

The  first  literary  effort  that  I  ever  sent  for  publication 
was  the  sonnet  called  "Surrender."  I  wrote  it  when 
I  was  fifteen  and  sent  it  to  the  editor  of  a  dis 
tinguished  magazine.  It  was  returned  to  me  with  the  usual 
slip ;  I  pinned  it  to  my  note  book  and  wrote  under  it:  "Some 
day  this  editor  will  accept  this  sonnet." 

The  more  important  literary  effort  in  the  way  of  making 
my  name  known  was  a  short  story  called  "A  Brother  to 
Dragon."  I  was  in  the  habit  of  writing  many  short  stories, 
but  I  never  sent  them  round  to  publishers  or  magazines. 
The  history  of  this  particular  story  is  as  follows:  when  I 
had  finished  it  I  said  to  my  mother:  "I  think  this  is  rather 
a  good  story,  at  least  it  is  not  commonplace." 

My  mother  agreed  with  me,  took  it  downstairs  with  her 
to  read  it  in  manuscript  and  left  it  among  her  music  on 
the  piano. 

One  day  a  young  friend  of  mine,  Mr.  William  Sigourney 
Otis  from  Boston,  looking  over  the  music  came  on  "A 
Brother  to  Dragon,"  still  in  manuscript.  He  read  it  and 
when  I  came  down  he  remarked  to  me:  "By  Jove,  Amelie! 
D'you  know  I  think  this  a  stunning  story." 

I  was  pleased  and  showed  it.  He  said:  "What  are  you 
going  to  do  with  it?"  I  said  I  dreaded  receiving  the  usual 
editorial  slip  such  as  I  had  received  five  years  ago.  He 
replied :  "I  am  not  going  to  take  it  to  an  editor." 

I  said:  "What  then,  a  publisher?" 

He  said:  "Neither.  There's  an  awfully  nice  chap  in  the 
Houghton  Mifflin  bookshop  and  I  shall  simply  hand  it  to 
him." 

I  said :  "Very  well  if  you  want  to  do  it,  only  don't  come 
back  and  cry  on  my  shoulder  if  they  don't  do  anything 
with  it." 

He  never  wept  on  my  shoulder,  and  this  is  what  happened 
to  my  manuscript.  The  "nice  chap"  in  Messrs.  Houghton 
Mifflin  bookshop  took  it,  read  it  and  took  it  a  little  further 


218  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

to  Mr.  Aldrich,  then  the  Editor  of  The  Atlantic  Monthly. 

Mr.  Aldrich  accepted  it  as  soon  as  he  had  read  it  and 
sent  for  Mr.  Otis  from  whom  I  had  extracted  a  promise  not 
to  reveal  my  name  under  any  circumstance  whatever.  Mr. 
Aldrich,  when  he  could  not  learn  my  name,  said:  "What 
has  happened  to  this  young  man?  Is  he  in  jail?  If  he  is, 
tell  him  I'll  bail  him  out  and  pay  his  way  to  Boston,  for 
I  must  see  him." 

However,  I  remained  obstinate  and  the  story  appeared 
anonymously  in  the  next  number  of  The  Atlantic  Monthly 
as  the  opening  article. 

Two  months  later,  encouraged  by  my  unexpected  success, 
I  sent  again  to  the  editor  of  the  distinguished  magazine  the 
sonnet  that  he  had  refused  five  years  before,  also  revealing 
my  name  as  the  author  of  "A  Brother  to  Dragon."  It  was 
accepted  promptly  with  a  charming  note  from  the  same  editor 
whose  name  was  not  Oliver  but  who  asked  for  more. 


ARTHUR  SOMERS  ROCHE 

Almost  nineteen  years  ago,  a  slim  youth,  then  in  law 
school,  brushed  a  lock  of  hair  back  from  his  tall 
forehead.  Those  were  the  days  when  our  hero  had 
hair.  He  had  lots  of  other  things,  too — among  them  an 
amazing  belief  in  his  own  genius.  Although  a  student  of 
law,  he  had  not  yet  definitely  decided  to  follow  the  legal 
career.  Against  all  rules  of  suspense,  we  will  inform  you 
at  once  that  he  followed  the  legal  career  only  briefly.  And 
that  you  may  not  draw  too  hasty  conclusions,  let  us  further 
state  that  he  didn't  follow  an  illegal  career,  either.  Anyway, 
it  wasn't  illegal  then,  and  you  could  buy  it  almost  any 
where,  provided  you  were  eighty  yards  from  a  church  or  a 
public  school  and  lived  in  a  community  of  civilization  and 
culture  and  the  hour  was  between  six  a.  m.  and  one  a.  m. 

He  yawned,  our  hero  did.  A  member  of  the  family 
rebuked  him.  "Going  to  bed?"  he  was  then  asked. 

"Nope.     Guess  I'll  write  a  short  story." 


ARTHUR    SOMERS    ROCHE  219 

Thus,  debonairly,  did  our  hero,  Gtat  nineteen,  leap  into 
his  real  career.  For  fools  rush  in  ... 

He  knew  nothing  of  the  grinning  fates  who  leered  down 
upon  him.  Had  he  foreseen  what  lay  ahead  perhaps  he 
might  have  got  a  job  as  a  shipping  clerk  in  a  woollen  house 
and  by  this  time  have  become  senior  partner  and  have  owned 
a  bunch  of  stock  in  a  local  bank.  Yet,  knowing  our  hero, 
I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  had  he  known  to  the  last  cheer 
less  detail  what  he  must  endure  before  he  achieved  any 
sort  of  literary  recognition  he  still  would  have  traveled  the 
same  path ;  because  he  wanted  to  write  and  believed  that  by 
inheritance  he  was  destined  to  write. 

He  wrote  the  short  story  that  night.  It  was  about  two 
thousand  words  long  and  pretty  bad.  Next  day,  he  sent 
it  to  one  of  the  New  York  magazines.  It  came  back.  But 
with  it  came  a  note  from  the  editor  who  was  good  enough 
to  say  that  he  had  found  the  little  yarn  very  amusing. 

And  so  our  hero  sent  it  to  another  magazine.  But  his 
allowance  of  pocket-money  was  small;  stamps  cost  money. 
A  couple  more  magazines,  and  the  short  story  was  shoved 
in  the  darkest  drawer  of  an  old  desk. 

Four  years  elapse.  .  .  .  Our  hero,  now  old  enough 
to  vote,  and  realizing  that  he  will  never  become  a  judge 
unless  he  first  builds  up  a  reputation  as  a  lawyer,  and  realiz 
ing  that  he  will  never  gain  that  reputation  until  he  has  a 
lot  of  clients,  and  realizing  that  he'll  never  have  a  lot  of  cli 
ents  until  he  has  a  big  reputation,  and  hating  the  whole 
thing,  anyway,  and  having  lost  all  of  eighteen's  vague  awe 
of  judges — one  of  them  having  decided  a  case  against  him — 
quits  the  legal  profession — leaves  it  flat,  desolate  and  for 
lorn,  and  takes  a  midnight  train  to  New  York. 

He  arrives  on  Sunday  and,  of  course,  like  every  Boston 
youth  who  visits  New  York,  spends  the  first  evening  calling 
on  a  girl  in  Yonkers.  Next  day  he  called  on  Peter  Dunne, 
editor  of  The  American  Magazine,  and  destined  to  eternal 
fame  as  the  author  of  "Mr.  Dooley." 

Mr.  Dunne  gave  our  hero  a  letter  to  William  Lewis,  then 
and  now  editor  of  the  Morning  Telegraph. 


220  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

Mr.  Lewis  read  the  letter.  It  was  a  kindly  letter,  inviting 
Colonel  Lewis  to  employ  our  hero,  or  throw  him  out  a 
window,  or  anything  else  that  might  please  the  Colonel's 
fancy. 

"What  can  you  do  ?"  asked  the  Colonel. 

"Write  funny  stuff,"  replied  our  hero. 

Colonel  Lewis  hurled  his  gauntlet  to  the  floor.  "Let's  see 
some,"  he  said. 

Our  hero,  bending  over,  gracefully  retrieved  the  gauntlet. 
"Read  this,"  he  challenged. 

"This"  was  the  battered  manuscript  of  his  nineteenth 
year.  The  Colonel  read  it  swiftly;  he  grunted  briefly. 

"I'll  take  this,"  he  announced. 

"How  much  do  I  get  for  it?"  our  hero  inquired. 

"Six  dollars,"  said  Colonel  Bill. 

Thus  was  our  hero  made  a  real  author,  one  who  received 
pay  for  his  creations,  one  who  trod  the  same  byways  as 
Poe,  Hawthorne,  O.  Henry,  Shakespeare  .... 

We  hope  that  Colonel  Lewis,  among  his  doubtless  few 
errors  in  a  long  and  honorable  career,  does  not  number  the 
fact  that  he  started  our  hero  on  his  literary  way. 

HENRY  C.  ROWLAND 

Savants  of  physiology  tell  us  that  the  first  evidences  of 
organic  life  are  contractility  and  irritability.     I  should 
say  that  the  next  forward  step  lay  in  the  desire  for 
expression. 

I  passed  this  second  examination  at  the  age  of  eight. 
There  were  quite  a  number  of  us  kids  on  our  block,  3'8th 
Street,  New  York,  and  my  father,  who  was  fortunately  for 
himself  a  child  lover,  liked  to  invent  games  that  might  help 
develop  our  natural  gifts.  He  instructed  us  in  a  game  which 
we  called  "Community,"  and  supplied  us  with  a  toy  coinage, 
of  which  as  I  remember  about  ten  units  had  the  actual  value 
of  a  cent.  This  money  was  equally  distributed  amongst  the 
members  of  the  community,  each  of  which  then  entered  on 
some  trade  or  profession. 


HENRY    C.    ROWLAND  221 

We  had  our  stores  and  offices  and  studies.  One  of  the 
boys  immediately  opened  a  bank.  Another  started  a  trans 
portation  service  up  and  down  the  block,  which  gave  satis 
faction  to  the  commuters.  The  locomotive  was  a  wooden 
velocipede  which  hauled  coaches  of  express  wagons  and  other 
rolling  stock.  The  passengers  of  this  pioneer  venture  were 
always  willing  to  lend  a  hand.  My  elder  brother,  a  natural 
craftsman,  opened  his  shop  for  the  manufacture  of  toy  boats 
and  puzzles,  usually  maps,  sawn  on  a  scroll-saw  and  he 
turned  pretty  little  brass  cannon  on  his  lathe.  My  sisters 
went  into  the  candy  business. 

For  my  part,  having  learned  to  write  legibly  at  the  age 
of  eight,  there  seemed  to  be  no  reason  for  not  taking  ad 
vantage  of  the  accomplishment  by  entering  the  open  game  of 
literature  and  writing  a  novel. 

My  dual  motive  at  that  time  was  precisely  what  it  is 
today,  the  desire  for  expression  and  that  of  worldly  gain. 

Wherefore  I  got  to  work,  precisely  as  I  do  now,  except 
that  at  that  time  I  was  possessed  of  greater  enthusiasm  and 
ambition  and  made  the  whole  book,  text,  illustrations,  bind 
ing  and  everything.  This  work  was  in  two  volumes,  about 
three  by  five  inches  in  size  and  must  have  contained  at  least 
three  hundred  words.  I  believe  the  Book  of  Genesis  which 
tells  of  the  Creation  of  the  World  is  about  this  length. 
Many  modern  readers  would  find  it  a  magnificent  fault  in 
modern  fiction.  And  mine  was  a  success.  It  was  a  best 
seller.  In  fact  it  was  the  only  one  in  our  community  until 
the  next.  I  had  no  confreres  or  contemporaries  contributing 
original  work  to  the  Community's  circulating  library.  It 
was  a  Golden  Age. 

I  may  say  in  passing  that  it  is  a  curious  historic  fact  that 
in  later  years  the  majority  of  us  boys  followed  our  first 
choice  of  professions  with  more  or  less  success. 

My  maiden  effort  was  published  under  the  nom  de  plume 
of  "M.  Socrates,"  and  it  had  a  succinct  preface  which  read : 
"This  is  a  good  book  and  very  intrusting.  It  can  be  read 
by  every  member  of  the  Household."  (A  high  endeavor 
which  I  have  since  tried  to  be  true  to.)  It  opened  with  a 


222  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

short  verse  from  "The  Inchcape  Rock,"  then  plunged  im 
mediately  into  the  story,  as  follows : 

"It  was  midnight  on  the  broad  Atalantic,  and  the 
gallant  ship  Tigeress  lay  still.  There  was  no  sound  save 
the  trickel  of  the  waves  as  they  dashed  against  the  hull 
of  the  vessel." 

I  am  told  that  my  style  remains  unchanged.  Let  me  quote 
a  few  passages  from  the  subject  matter,  of  which  I  have 
often  since  made  use,  though  never  I  fear  with  the  vivid 
pungency  of  the  original  yarn: 

The  sun  had  just  risen  when  the  captain  came  on 
deck  and  began  eagerly  scanning  the  hurizon.  "Joe," 
said  he  to  the  mate,  "I  think  there  is  one  in  sight. 
Hand  me  the  teluscope." 

Joe  handed  him  the  spuy-glass,  and  the  Captain  had 
taken  but  a  single  glance  when  he  began  to  grind  his 
teeth  and  cried  in  a  tone  of  satusfaction :  "I  know  him, 
the  villyun!  "Quick,  Joe,"  said  he,  "bring  up  the 
powder  and  shot  and  get  the  cannions  in  order!" 

The  mate  hastened  to  obey  because  not  long  before 
his  Girl  had  been  taken  prisuner  on  a  sea  fight  and  he 
felt  shure  she  must  be  aboard  the  Red  Rover  at  this 
very  minute  .  .  ." 

The  first  volume  of  this  novel  carries  the  narrative  to  a 
tense  moment  where  the  frigate  and  pirate  are  about  to 
engage,  and  the  reader  is  then  informed  that  it  will  set  him 
back  another  "one-half  dime"  to  learn  the  sequel  of  the 
affair.  Nobody  can  deny  the  orthodoxy  of  this  policy.  It 
came  into  vogue  with  the  first  story  teller  and  subsequent 
ones  have  carried  on,  "As  to  a  fountain  from  other  stars, 
filling  their  golden  urns  with  light." 

This  novel  was  subscribed  for  by  the  "Community"  cir 
culating  library,  and  there  being  only  the  original  long 
hand  MSS.  the  author  depended  for  his  royalties  on  the 
amount  allowed  from  subscriptions  to  the  privilege  of  draw 
ing  out  and  reading  his  book.  It  proved  popular,  particu- 


HENRY    C.    ROWLAND  223 

larly  with  the  adults  of  the  household.  But  then  it  was  a 
very  man-sized  story. 

As  this  maiden  effort  was  never  printed,  it  may  not  fill 
the  requirements  of  that  of  which  I  am  requested  a  descrip 
tion.  There  followed  a  hiatus  of  about  twenty  years  in 
which  all  literary  effort  was  suspended  so  far  as  any  attempt 
at  fiction  is  concerned.  During  this  time  there  was  a  cer 
tain  amount  of  technical  matter  from  my  pen  printed, 
medical  and  surgical  and  a  little  descriptive  travel  and  about 
boat  handling.  Then,  after  the  publication  of  several  articles 
on  warfare  in  the  Philippines,  Mr.  S.  S.  McClure  suggested 
that  I  try  my  hand  at  fiction.  The  result  was  a  series  of 
stories  published  first  in  his  magazine  and  later  in  book 
form  under  the  title  of  "Sea  Scamps." 

These  stories  were  scarcely  up  to  the  novel  of  twenty 
years  before,  being  more  sketchy  and  lacking  in  the  same 
robust  love  interest  centered  in  the  Captain  and  his  Girl,  who 
was  "taken  prisoner  on  the  Sea  Fight." 

I  have  since  written  a  good  many  "one  half  dime"  novels 
— less  price  perhaps  as  the  reader  has  got  a  good  deal  more 
for  his  nickel's  worth,  there  having  been  other  stories.  But  at 
least  I  have  tried  to  stick  conscientiously  and  at  the  cost 
of  sensational  publicity  to  that  first  preface  which  recom 
mended  the  book  as  wholesome  literary  pap  for  all  the 
household. 

ERNEST  THOMPSON  SETON 

I  note  that  I  am  to  tell  about  my  maiden  effort.    This  is 
not  easy,  for  the  fact  is,  I  made  a  number  of  maiden 
efforts,  and  the  puzzle  is,  which  one  is  wanted? 
The  wild  animal  story  I  wrote  in  1880,  and  couldn't  get 
any  one  to  publish,  so  that  it  is  still  in  my  desk  (for  which 
I  am  now  thankful  as  I  look  over  it)  ? 

Or  the  1882  attempt,  which  lies  with  No.  1? 
Or  the  No.  3,  which  having  elements  of  history  in  it,  got 
into   a  very  local   newspaper,   which   generously  made   no 
charge  for  insertion  ? 


224  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

Or  the  1884  attempt,  which  is  reposing  mustily  with  its 
maiden  yea,  virgin  sisters,  Nos.  1  and  2? 

Or  the  No.  5  attempt,  on  "Housebuilding,"  which,  through 
influence,  I  got  into  a  local  Canadian  magazine,  and  having  a 
very  heavy  pull  through  a  political  friend,  I  extorted  $5.00 
for  the  article  of  2,000  words? 

Or  perhaps  you  really  mean  my  early  1886  effort  which 
was  a  chapter  of  my  wild  life,  and  appeared  in  Forest  and 
Stream  for  June  6th  of  that  year.  Or  possibly  my  later 
attempt  that  same  year  (called  "The  Song  of  the  Prairie 
Lark")  which  appeared  in  the  old  American  Magazine, 
and  killed  it  dead, — at  least  there  was  no  later  issue  of  said 
magazine. 

Now,  personally,  if  I  must  make  a  choice  of  this  bunch  of 
maiden  efforts,  I  should  select  "The  Drummer  on  Snow- 
shoes,"  which  appear  in  St.  Nicholas  in  1887.  For  this, 
with  five  illustrations,  they  paid  me  the  incredible  sum  of 
fifty  dollars — cash  (not  promises) — enough  to  keep  me  on 
the  prairies  for  a  year. 

I  showed  this  story  to  Joe  Collins,  the  Canadian  writer. 
He  had  editorial  instinct,  and  said,  briefly:  "You  can  sell 
as  many  of  this  kind  as  you  choose  to  write  and  as  fast  as 
you  choose  to  write  them";  and  he  proved  right,  for  this 
was  later  re-written  and  re-published  as  "Redruff"  in  my 
most  successful  book  of  animal  stories. 

As  I  look  back  over  these  many  attempts  I  realize  that  the 
misguided  editors  rejected  all  my  efforts  to  be  "so  very 
literary"  and  accepted  those  in  which  I  tried  to  tell  in  simple 
language  a  story  that  came  from  my  heart. 

ANNA  McCLURE  SHOLL 

The  great  event  happened  while   I    was   at   boarding 
school.     St.  Nicholas  Magazine  had  offered  prizes 
for  the  best  short  stories  written  by  youngsters  whose 
age,  if  I  remember  rightly,  was  not  to  exceed  fifteen  years. 
The  first  prize  was  forty  dollars,  the  second  twenty.    When 


ANNA   McCLURE    SHOLL  225 

I  read  this  thrilling  announcement  it  seemed  as  if  the  great 
crisis  of  my  existence  had  arrived. 

I  had  never  been  what  was  known  in  those  far  days  as  "a 
perfect  little  lady."  When  I  wasn't  climbing  trees  or  moon 
ing  in  some  sunny  corner,  I  was  sprawled  on  the  floor  read 
ing  Dickens  or  old-bound  volumes  of  Harpers'.  My  cher 
ished  ambition  to  write  did  not  greatly  interest  my  practical 
parents.  My  mother  indeed  was  chiefly  aware  of  the  fact 
that  I  hated  sewing  and  other  feminine  accomplishments 
and  that  in  no  way  did  I  resemble  Madgie  Lukens,  the 
charming  little  daughter  of  a  neighbor  constantly  held  be 
fore  me  as  an  example  and  rebuke. 

The  St.  Nicholas  prize  competition  seemed  not  only  a 
chance  to  even  up  matters  but  to  convince  the  family  that 
an  author  didn't  have  to  know  how  to  cook  to  write  about 
cooking.  If  I  won  a  prize  I  might  permanently  divert  my 
mother's  mind  from  my  feminine  deficiencies.  Fired  with 
this  ambition,  I  forthwith  wrote  a  story  called  "Helen's 
Prize  Dinner"  and  despatched  it  to  St.  Nicholas  office  with 
many  hopes  and  fears. 

Weeks  passed.  The  manuscript  of  a  schoolmate,  sub 
mitted  in  the  same  competition,  had  come  back.  Not  mine. 
One  never-to-be-forgotten  day  the  postman  brought  me 
a  letter  bearing  the  imprint  of  the  St.  Nicholas  Magazine. 

Thrilling  news! 

I  had  won  the  second  prize  of  twenty  dollars. 

The  entire  school  went  down  to  buy  a  copy  of  the  maga 
zine  which  contained  the  announcement.  We  read  it  walk 
ing  five  abreast  on  the  narrow  sidewalk  of  New  Brunswick's 
main  street.  I  tried  not  to  look  proud,  and  to  treat  my 
friends  with  the  easy  familiarity  of  one  overtaken  by  great 
ness,  but  still  human. 

Later,  the  story  was  published  in  St.  Nicholas  and  the 
family  succumbed! 


226  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

LINCOLN  STEFFENS 

My  first  was  a  poem. 
Naturally. 
I  was  young,  very  young. 

But  I  had  a  conscience  even  then,  and  it  was  that  which 
sang.  And  it  sang  a  hymn  of  regret  for  the  years  I  had 
wasted ;  the  lost,  lost  years  of  my  precious  life.  The  refrain, 
which  is  all  I  can  recall  of  it  now — the  cry  which  sobbed 
through  it  all  was: 

"If  only  I  could  live  once  more." 

And  that  was  all  right.  And  the  editor  of  The  Record 
Union  of  Sacramento,  California — he  accepted  my  poem;  he 
printed  it  with  my  name. 

So  it  was  a  success,  my  maiden  effort.     I  was  proud. 
But  I  was  puzzled,  too;  for  some  years  afterward  I  could 
not  see  why  the  editor  printed  after  my  name  the  irrelevant 
words:    "Aged  eleven." 

JULIAN  STREET 

Ridley  College,  the  boarding  school  which  I  attended,  is 
at  St.  Catharine's,  Ontario,  and  is  an  English  type  of 
school.  In  my  day  boys  committing  small  offenses 
were  punished  by  detention.  In  detention  we  were  given 
long  sums  in  pounds,  shillings  and  pence.  These  were  known 
as  "tots." 

For  offenses  regarded  as  too  serious  to  be  punished  by 
"tots"  we  were  strapped.  A  master  would  give  the  offender, 
say,  "six  on  each" — six  blows  on  the  palm  of  each  hand,  ad 
ministered  with  a  short  piece  of  rubber-sheathed  belting. 
Twelve  on  each  was  the  severest  strapping  I  ever  heard  of. 
Four  to  six  on  each  was  the  average.  If  a  boy  had  sufficient 
notice  in  advance  of  strapping,  he  could  prepare  for  it,  miti 
gating  the  pain  by  having  his  palms  coated  with  resin. 

Offenses  considered  very  grave  were  punished  by  caning. 
Canings  were  administered  only  by  the  principal,  Rev.  Dr. 


JULIAN    STREET  227 

Miller,  the  boy  being  taken  by  the  collar  and  flogged  on  the 
back  with  a  flexible  rod.  Obviously,  the  protection  in  this 
case  was  extra  clothing. 

My  maiden  effort,  published  in  the  school  paper,  Ada 
Ridleiana,  about  Easter,  1895,  just  before  my  sixteenth 
birthday,  dealt  with  the  more  vigorous  forms  of  punishment. 
I  have  eliminated  many  of  the  over-emphatic  italics  and  capi 
tals  with  which  the  original  verses  were  pock-marked,  but 
have  refrained  from  performing  obviously  necessary  ortho 
paedic  operations. 

FOILED  AGAIN 

"Say,  Mr.  Miller  wants  you!" 

Some  one  howled  in  at  my  door, 
And  I  knew  he'd  seen  me  out  of  bounds 

Upon  the  day  before, 
So  I  donned  three  suits  of  underwear 

(I  tried  to  don  one  more 
But  I  couldn't  so  I  hung  it 

On  a  hook  behind  the  door). 

Then  I  got  three  college  jerseys 

And  a  heavy  flannel  shirt. 
(I'd  like  to  know  how  through  such  layers 

A  caning  still  can  hurt.) 
To  be  on  the  safe  side  of  it, 
On  went  a  few  things  more; 
Then  I  sadly  sallied  down 

And  knocked  on  the  office  door. 

"Come  in !"  a  dreaded  voice  replied, 

So,  with  a  guileless  face, 
The  door  I  pushed  and  stepped  into 

The  awe-inspiring  place. 
Then  commenced  the  little  lecture 

Ere  the  whacks  began   to   fall — 
Oh,  how  I  wished  I  had  skipped  off 

And  not  gone  there  at  all! 


228  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

But  there  was  still  one  comfort 

That  even  then  I  had — 
With  all  my  clothes  a  caning 

Could  not  be  very  bad. 
But  just  guess  what  my  feelings  were 

When  I  got  the  commands, 
After  all  my  work  of  padding, 

To  take  it  on  the  hands! 

It  is  perhaps  worth  adding  that  this  episode  was  not 
founded  upon  fact,  but  was  pure  fiction;  and  that  though 
Dr.  Miller  overlooked  several  occasions  upon  which  un 
doubtedly  he  should  have  strapped  or  caned  me,  I  have  for 
given  the  omissions  and  prize  him  as  a  friend. 

Though  I  had  never  been  inside  a  newspaper  offce  or 
known  a  newspaper  man,  I  had  from  boyhood  a  fixed  idea 
that  newspaper  work  was  the  work  for  me.  I  was,  how 
ever,  unable  to  get  a  start  on  a  Chicago  paper,  and  worked 
for  several  months  in  my  father's  railroad  office.  Then  I 
found  a  job  in  an  advertising  agency.  I  liked  advertising 
work  because  it  had  to  do  with  printer's  ink,  but  I  was 
young  and  green  and  soon  lost  my  position.  At  that  junc 
ture  a  school  friend  whose  father  was  publisher  of  the 
New  York  Mail  and  Express  (now  the  Evening  Mail), 
wrote  me  that  if  I  would  come  to  New  York  they  would  try 
me  out  as  a  reporter. 

I  went. 

Coincidence  played  such  a  curious  part  in  the  success  of 
my  first  assignment  that  I  am  almost  ashamed  to  tell  about 
it.  It  sounds  like  the  conventional  made-up  magazine  story 
of  the  cub  reporter.  In  order  to  offset,  as  far  as  possible, 
the  aroma  of  fiction  I  shall  mention  names. 

I  arrived  in  New  York  two  or  three  weeks  before  the 
first  of  the  international  yacht  races  in  which  Sir  Thomas 
Lipton  tried  to  "lift"  the  America's  cup.  The  Shamrock  I 
was  then  in  drydock  in  one  of  the  shipyards  of  the  Erie 
Basin,  Brooklyn. 


JULIAN    STREET  229 

I  had  no  sooner  reported  to  the  city  editor,  Mr.  William 
Evans,  than  he  dispatched  me  to  Erie  Basin  to  find  out  what 
I  could  about  the  Shamrock  I. 

I  was  a  stranger  in  New  York  and  had  some  difficulty  in 
reaching  the  shipyard.  When  I  got  there  I  discovered  that  it 
was  surrounded  by  a  high  brick  wall,  and  that  guards  were 
stationed  at  the  gates  to  keep  people  out.  Some  of  the  re 
porters  who  were  hanging  about  had  taken  a  rowboat  and 
made  a  tour  of  the  outside  of  the  shipyard,  but  had  been 
able  to  see  nothing  of  the  Shamrock. 

Now,  it  so  happened  that  just  before  I  left  Chicago  I 
had  met  on  the  street  Mr.  Walter  C.  Hately,  a  friend  of 
my  father's,  and  had  told  him  that  I  was  going  to  New 
York,  and  why.  Thereupon  Mr.  Hately  took  from  his 
pocket  a  visiting  card,  and  wrote  on  it  an  introduction  to 
Sir  Thomas  Lipton,  who  was  a  friend  of  his. 

"The  yacht  races  will  be  on  pretty  soon,"  he  said.  "This 
card  may  be  of  some  use  to  you." 

When  I  went  to  the  Erie  Basin  I  had  the  card  in  my 
pocket. 

I  tried  to  get  one  of  the  guards  to  take  it  in,  but  he 
said  Sir  Thomas  was  not  there.  I  then  asked  to  see  the 
head  of  the  shipyard  company,  and  on  the  strength  of  the 
card  to  Sir  Thomas  was  admitted  to  his  office.  I  told  him 
that  I  was  a  reporter  on  a  first  assignment  and  that  my 
future  depended  largely  on  the  success  or  failure  of  my 
effort  to  see  the  racing  yacht  in  drydock. 

He  replied  that  he  was  not  in  position  to  authorize  me 
to  visit  the  yacht,  but  that  he  would  send  my  card  of  intro 
duction  to  Mr.  Barrie,  Sir  Thomas's  racing  representative, 
who  was  then  in  the  yard,  and  that  if  Mr.  Barrie  wished  to 
let  me  in,  it  would  be  all  right. 

To  make  a  long  story  short,  Mr.  Barrie  saw  me  and  let 
me  see  the  Shamrock.  I  knew  nothing  about  yachts,  but 
to  have  seen  the  Shamrock  in  drydock,  when  no  other  re 
porter  could  do  so,  was  something  of  an  achievement. 

When  I  left  the  yard  I  telephoned  the  office  and  asked 
Mr.  Evans  what  to  do.  He  told  me  to  stay  where  I  was 


230  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

and  give  them  the  story  by  telephone.  Then  he  placed  at 
the  other  end  of  the  wire  a  man  named  Clarke  Firestone 
who,  as  I  learned  later,  was  the  ablest  reporter  on  the  paper. 
I  did  not  know  how  to  tell  my  story,  but  Firestone  cross- 
examined  me  and  got  it.  He  wrote  a  column  or  more  and 
it  appeared  that  afternoon  on  the  first  page. 

That  was  the  first  piece  of  writing  for  which  I  received 
pay.  It  was  written  by  someone  else. 

ARTHUR  STRINGER 

My  maiden  effort  as  an  author,  that  is  to  say  my  initial 
contribution  to  public  and  permanent  literature, 
was  both  a  maiden  one  and  an  initial  one  in  rather 
a  double-edged  sense  of  the  word.  For  when  a  certain  new 
Pickle  Factory  was  being  erected  in  the  outskirts  of  a  certain 
suburb  where  I  once  dug  pirate  caves  and  ate  inadequately 
fricasseed  crawfish  and  had  my  being,  I  happened  to  be  pre 
maturely  but  profoundly  and  incommunicably  in  love. 

So,  to  ease  that  ache  which  had  rather  bewilderingly  trans 
ferred  itself  from  a  more  or  less  settled  abode  in  the  diges 
tive  organs  to  an  entirely  new  position  in  the  organ  of  cir 
culation,  I  proceeded,  quite  unobserved  by  the  workmen,  to 
inscribe  on  an  exposed  portion  of  their  still  impressionable 
cement-work,  a  statement  which  impressed  me,  at  the  time, 
as  being  as  monumental  as  it  was  axiomatic. 

Within  a  large  and  deeply  auriculated  heart  I  wrote  on 
that  still  receptive  concrete 

A.  S.  lovs  C.  W. 

And  in  doing  so  I  achieved  a  consciousness,  not  only  of  the 
permanence  of  the  written  word,  but  also  of  the  indecipher 
able  mutability  of  the  feminine  mind.  .  For  the  lady  in  ques 
tion,  for  reasons  best  known  to  herself  and  her  sex,  took 
umbrage  at  this  public  advertisement  of  a  relationship  so 
essentially  personal,  and  a  prompt  but  unmistakable  cool 
ness  grew  up  between  us. 

We  no  longer  surreptitiously  perused  a  common  copy  of 
"The  Swiss  Family  Robinson"  and  we  no  longer  shared 


ARTHUR   STRINGER  231 

the  same  raspberry  all-day  sucker.  That  quite  indignant 
Mistress  Cherry  Woods  (and  since  Cherry  has  long  since 
changed  her  name  and  is  now  the  mother  of  five  equally 
devastating  and  equally  charming  daughters,  I  think  I  am 
free  to  disclose  to  the  world  what  always  seemed  to  me  an 
especially  alluring  and  colorful  appellative)  gave  me  the 
mitten,  in  fact,  and  took  up  with  one  Benny  Baxter,  who 
chanced  to  be  the  possessor  of  a  new  brand  of  bicycle  (then 
somewhat  contemptuously  known  as  "a  safety")  which  could 
be  ridden  with  equal  ease  by  a  member  of  either  sex. 

But  year  after  year  that  essentially  autobiographical  ac 
knowledgment  and  those  initials  so  touchingly  enclosed  in 
the  same  heart  served  to  bring  home  to  me  both  the  irony 
of  human  destiny  and  the  solemnity  of  ever  committing  to 
enduring  form  the  acknowledgment  of  an  emotion  which 
cannot  identify  itself  as  permanent. 

I  have  written  many  things,  since  then,  and  have  seen 
Time  commit  them  to  the  four  winds  of  oblivion.  But 
so  long  as  the  Pickle  Factory  stands  I  shall  not  be  altogether 
unknown  to  the  world. 

I  even  begin  to  suspect,  in  looking  back  through  the  mists 
of  the  half-remembered,  that  it  was  the  charming  Cherry 
who  first  headed  me  for  the  Pierian  Spring.  To  recon 
struct  a  blighted  life,  after  the  withdrawal  of  her  favor, 
I  turned  to  poetry.  My  first  poem  of  any  dimensions,  I 
distinctly  recall,  was  "A  History  of  the  World  Down  to 
the  Trojan  War."  I  had  no  suspicion  at  the  time,  of  course, 
that  I  was  anticipating  so  agile  and  accomplished  a  rival  as 
Wells,  just  as  I  had  no  suspicion  that  I  was  to  get  spanked 
for  writing  a  large  portion  of  this  effort  on  the  bathroom 
walls. 

It  must  have  been  quite  a  long  poem,  for  even  those 
portions  which  I  duly  committed  to  paper  provided  sufficient 
material,  later  on,  for  the  manufacture  of  several  box-kites. 
It  was  written  in  blank  verse,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
rhymes,  in  those  days,  were  a  good  deal  of  a  bother  to  me. 
The  spelling  was  more  or  less  phonetic,  imagistic,  as  it  were, 
yet  producing  the  effect  desired  (if  you  get  what  I  mean). 


232  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

But  of  that  first  masterpiece,  alas,  only  one  line  remains. 
That  one  residuary  line,  I  recall,  was  from  the  passage  where 
Hector  and  Achilles  are  eating  muskmelons  and  green  corn 
together  after  an  artillery  duel  somewhere  in  the  vaguely 
denominated  suburbs  of  Troy,  and  the  former  rather  in 
hospitably  informs  the  latter  that  he  intends  to  make  him, 
in  the  words  of  the  poem, 

"Hop-scotch  out  of  Troy,  as  tame  as  a  toad." 

The  homely  directness,  the  by  no  means  unartful  allitera 
tion,  the  obvious  knowledge  of  animal  life,  all  crowded  into 
one  line,  have  apparently  made  that  line  imperishable  to  me. 

As  for  my  first  published  poem,  I  try  as  much  as  I  can 
not  to  remember  it.  I  do  this,  not  only  because  it  was  such  a 
bad  poem,  but  because  of  certain  painful  memories  associated 
with  it.  There  was  a  full  page  of  it,  and  I  sold  it  (at  least 
I  thought  I  sold  it)  to  The  Canadian  Magazine.  It  was 
sent  in,  and  accepted,  and  duly  appeared  in  type  to  set  the 
world  on  fire.  I  was  even  honored  with  twelve  editorial 
copies  of  the  magazine.  Then  I  waited,  patiently  impatient 
for  that  remuneration  which  tradition  led  me  to  expect  from 
the  publication  involved.  My  heart  skipped  a  beat  or  two, 
I  remember,  when  I  finally  opened  the  long-expected  letter. 
And  it  was  a  bill  for  three  dollars,  for  twelve  copies  of  The 
Canadian  Magazine. 

When  I  had  recovered  from  this  blow  I  sent  a  shorter 
poem  to  The  Week,  then  edited  by  Goldwin  Smith.  Dr. 
Smith,  in  some  way,  actually  accepted  the  poem  and  actually 
started  me  on  a  long  and  varied  career  of  crime  by  writing 
me  a  note  of  encouragement. 

In  the  matter  of  prose  I  moved  so  imperceptibly  from  the 
caldarium  of  college  journalism  and  the  tepidarium  of  the 
editorial  chair  into  the  frigidarium  of  actual  authorship  that 
it  is  now  hard  to  say  just  when  and  where  and  how  the  fatal 
first  plunge  came  about.  But  on  that  occasion  when  a  certain 
Fifty-sixth  Street  dentist  was  filling  one  of  my  molars  with 
silver-amalgam  and  at  the  same  time  essayed  to  fill  my  mind 
with  the  dolorous  tale  of  how  a  band  of  wire-tappers  had 


ARTHUR   STRINGER  233 

recently  mulcted  him  of  much  of  his  gold,  Fate,  at  the  same 
time  that  the  electric  drill  was  opening  up  a  new  cavity  in  a 
bicuspid,  was  opening  up  a  new  field  in  literary  activity.  I 
went  home  and  wrote  "The  Wire  Tappers"  and  for  ten 
long  years  became  associated,  in  the  unimaginative  eyes  of 
the  New  York  editor,  with  that  world  of  nocturnal  ad 
ventures  and  marshmallow  criminals  which  I  knew  so  very 
little  about. 

I  did  my  best,  of  course,  to  bridge  over  this  sad  hiatus 
in  my  earlier  education.  And  that  brings  back  still  an 
other  painful  episode  in  the  beginnings  of  my  mottled  career 
as  an  author. 

When  Harvey  O'Higgins  and  I  first  started  "free-lancing" 
in  our  ruinous  old  studio  on  the  top  floor  of  a  ruinous 
old  dwelling  at  146  Fifth  Avenue,  we  nursed  the  fond 
delusion  that  our  Avenue  address  was  going  to  be  a 
great  help  to  us  in  our  efforts.  We  even  cut  out  tobacco 
and  theatres  for  a  month,  to  possess  ourselves  of  adequately 
embossed  stationery — stationery  which  announced  to  the 
world  that  we  were  domiciled  and  doing  business  on  that 
one  and  only  avenue  of  the  affluent.  But  it  did  not  divulge 
the  fact  that  our  attic-studio  was  unheated  and  that  we  con 
sequently  slumbered  with  our  top-floor  doors  swung  wide, 
to  the  end  that  ascending  heat  from  less  straitened  tenants 
below  might  seep  into  our  meagre  quarters.  Nor  did  it  be 
tray  the  fact  that  we  slept  on  ex-army-cots,  garnered  at  a 
knock-down  price  from  a  Sixth  Avenue  dealer  in  all  such 
antiquities,  and  that  in  winter  we  padded  out  an  attenuated 
mattress  by  many  layers  of  the  Sunday  Sun  laboriously 
mucilaged  into  bed-length  sheets. 

But  about  this  time,  because  of  my  criminal  activities  on 
paper  and  my  interest  in  a  beneficent  but  purely  imaginary 
bank-robber  who  gave  every  promise  of  paying  our  rent  for 
the  winter,  I  felt  the  need  of  knowing  a  trifle  more  about 
safes  and  their  construction. 

Now,  I  had  never  owned  a  safe,  for  very  obvious  reasons; 
and  the  only  ones  I  had  ever  observed,  for  equally  obvious 
reasons,  were  shut  and  locked  at  the  time  of  my  approach. 


234  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

So  from  a  business  directory  I  ascertained  the  name  of  the 
biggest  firm  of  safe-makers  in  the  city,  or,  to  be  more  exact, 
the  name  of  the  firm  of  the  biggest  safe-makers  in  the  city. 
Then  I  took  a  sheet  of  our  resplendently  embossed  Fifth 
Avenue  note  paper,  and  thereon  typed  a  request  for  lit 
erature  and  data  regarding  their  heavier  makes  of  vaults, 
safes,  time-lock  strong-boxes,  etc. 

About  ten  o'clock  the  next  morning,  when  O'Higgins  was 
still  reposing  on  his  army-cot,  reading  with  one  hand,  so 
to  speak,  the  morning  World  while  with  the  other  he 
stirred  the  matutinal  oatmeal  bubbling  on  our  portable  gas- 
stove  beside  him,  and  while  I  still  slumbered  peacefully  on 
(for  in  those  days  we  found  it  simplified  both  our  finances 
and  our  housekeeping  to  permit  breakfast  to  merge  imper 
ceptibly  into  luncheon)  we  had  a  visitor. 

He  was  a  large-framed  gentleman  in  a  frock  coat  and  a 
silk  hat,  slightly  out  of  breath  from  having  climbed  so  many 
stairs.  He  was,  in  fact,  the  biggest  salesman  from  the  city's 
biggest  safe-makers.  I  opened  a  sleepy  eye  just  in  time  to 
see  that  he  carried  my  carefully  typed  letter  in  his  hand  and 
a  look  of  incredulous  exasperation  on  his  face,  for  O'Hig 
gins  had  neglected  his  bubbling  oatmeal  long  enough  to  ex 
plain,  with  a  jerk  of  his  thumb,  that  the  Rodolpho  our  visi 
tor  was  in  search  of  most  unmistakably  lay  before  him. 
And  that  frock-coated  salesman  gave  one  long  look  at  me, 
one  long  and  even  more  contemptuous  look  about  our  hum 
ble  but  honest  attic,  and  turned  on  his  heel.  He  stalked 
out,  without  a  word.  And  while  O'Higgins  eyed  me,  and 
I  eyed  O'Higgins,  I  remember,  the  oatmeal  porridge  got 
burned.  Sic  itur  ad  astral 

IDA  M.  TARBELL 


eff~iT^effnaby"   (teng'nabi). 

I          "Shot"    Referring  to  the  shot  which  killed 
Charles    XII.     "The    shot"    is    the    common 
reference  in  Swedish  books  to  Charles  XII's  death. 

"Having  but  one  name."    The  use  of  fixed  surnames 
did  not  extend  much  farther  back  than  the  latter  part 


IDA    M.    TARBELL  235 

of  the  tenth  century.  They  first  came  into  use  in 
France,  and  by  the  Normans  were  introduced  into 
England.  Prior  to  the  Reformation  surnames  were  less 
fixed  than  now.  Younger  sons  particularly,  dropped 
their  patronymic,  and  often,  instead,  adopted  the  name 
of  their  estate  or  place  of  residence,  as  did  Tegner. 

"Apples  of  Sodom"  Therenot  says:  "There  are 
apple  trees  on  the  side  of  the  Dead  Sea  which  bear  lovely 
fruit,  but  within  are  full  of  ashes." 

"Like  to  the  apples  on  the  Dead  Sea's  shore, 
All  ashes  to  the  taste." — Byron. 

"Loup-garou,"  (lou-ga-rou).  The  French  for  bug 
bear. 

The  above  brilliant  and  absorbing  paragraphs  are  frag 
ments  from  my  maiden  effort.  There  were  more  of  them — 
something  like  250  in  all. 

It  was  not  an  effort  born  of  a  desire  to  express  myself. 
I  had  never  had  that  torment. 

On  the  contrary,  I  naturally  detested  all  direct  self-expres 
sion,  regarding  it  as  an  invasion  of  my  privacy.  My  maiden 
effort  was  not  then  born  of  a  desire  to  say  something — nor 
of  need.  It  was  merely  an  attempt  to  do  a  good  turn  to  a 
perplexed  editor  who  had  appealed  to  me  to  help  him  out  of 
a  difficulty. 

This  editor's  periodical  was  known  as  The  Chautauquan. 
Its  pages  were  mainly  given  to  printing  the  reading  selected 
by  a  board  of  directors  for  the  Chautauqua  Literary  and 
Scientific  Circle. 

At  that  time  these  reading  courses  had  tens  of  thousands 
of  followers  scattered  throughout  the  country.  The  ma 
jority  of  them  lived  in  remote  places — on  farms,  in  the 
mountains,  in  small  villages.  They  had  access  to  few,  and 
many  of  them  to  no  books  of  reference. 

The  result  was  that  the  editor  of  the  magazine  and  the 
directors  of  the  courses  were  besieged  with  letters,  asking 
how  to  pronounce  this  word,  what  was  the  meaning  of  that, 


236  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

what  more  could  they  tell  one  about  this  person,  where  was 
this  town?  The  burden  of  reply  became  so  heavy  that  it 
was  suggested  that  The  Chautauquan  published  in  connection 
with  each  month's  reading  a  series  of  notes,  clearing  up,  as 
far  as  possible,  the  points  of  difficulty  that  were  making  so 
much  trouble.  "And,"  said  the  directors,  "let  it  be  done  at 
once." 

The  editor  could  not  put  his  hand  on  a  suitable  person. 
I  was  in  the  vicinity  and  known  generally  for  always  having 
my  head  in  a  book.  And  so  I  was  asked  as  a  friendly  ser 
vice  to  prepare  the  notes  for  one  month.  I  did  them — pro 
nunciations,  translations,  definitions,  explanations  of  allus- 
sions — biographical,  historical,  mythological,  scientific,  and 
so  forth.  A  deadly  corvee! 

I  was  too  unsophisticated  in  the  ways  of  the  publishing 
world  to  realize  that  what  the  editor  really  had  in  mind 
was  trying  me  out;  having  a  hope,  though  as  I  learned 
afterward  little  expectation,  that  I  would  "do"  for  his  new 
department.  My  first  effort  convinced  him  that  I  would. 
He  published  my  pickings  and  asked  me  to  go  on. 

Much  as  I  detested  the  work,  the  sight  of  the  things  in 
type  produced  a  queer  sense  of  compulsion  and  responsibility 
—I  had  begun  something  and  I  must  finish  it,  and  so  I  took 
on  the  department — or  the  department  took  me  on. 

I  soon  found  other  things  engulfing  me — all  the  various 
things  that  an  "organ"  must  do  to  serve  and  boost  its  con 
stituency.  It  was  not  long  until  I  found  myself  with  a 
make-up  on  hand.  I  began  to  write  editorial  articles.  That 
was  the  end  of  my  one  and  only  great  work  passion  and  the 
beginning  not  of  a  new  passion  but  of  many  new  tasks. 

You  see,  I  had  never  had  the  writer's  call,  had  always  had 
a  natural  repugnance  to  revealing  myself.  To  say  what  I 
felt  had  offended  me — it  was  mine,  let  others  keep  their 
hands  off !  Yet  I  had  my  dream — it  was  to  be  a  biologist. 

The  one  and  only  reason  that  I  desired  to  be  a  biologist 
was  that  I  might  spend  my  days  in  the  world  that  a  binocu 
lar  microscope  reveals. 


IDA   M.   TARBELL  237 

Never  had  anything  so  thrilled  me  as  chasing  the  protean 
amoeba.  Never  have  I  so  gloated  over  any  achievement  as 
discovering  under  the  microscope  the  delicate  foraminifera 
and  mounting  them  on  slides. 

Somewhere  in  the  junk  that  I  have  collected  in  my  life 
time  I  have  still  a  few  dozen  little  brown  slides  bearing 
these  tiny  shells,  marked  and  dated — laughable  remnants  of 
a  great  passion. 

My  maiden  effort  shattered  that  dream.  It  led  me  into 
fields  about  which  hitherto  I  had  had  no  curiosity,  and  of 
which  I  had  only  the  vague  awareness  the  college  gives. 
It  put  into  my  hands  tools  which  I  had  never  been  taught 
to  use,  and  in  which  I  had  only  the  most  perfunctory  in 
terest. 

If  it  had  not  been  for  my  maiden  effort,  who  knows,  I 
might  today  be  living  with  my  binocular  in  the  vivid,  active 
world  of  the  protozoa! 


BOOTH    TARKINGTON 

Something  had  made  me  melancholy — I  think  it  was  dis 
cipline.     I  was  thirteen,  and  retired  to  the  perpetual 
shade  on  the  north  side  of  the  house,  and  there,  among 
the  lilies  of  the  valley,  I  brooded  until  my  gloom  became 
cadenced  and  I  found  myself  to  be  a  poet.    Returning  to  the 
library  I  wrote  as  follows: 

THE  TREES 

When  the  soul  knows  but  sorrow, 
And  the  birth  of  tomorrow 

Will  bring  but  the  death  of  today, 
Turns  the  soul  to  the  trees 
Moving  cool  in  the  breeze 

With  shadows  of  leaves  at  play. 


238  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

Turns  the  soul  to  the  trees 
As  they  move  in  the  breeze, 

Finds  rest  but  no  gladness, 

Finds  rest  and  still  sadness, 
Finds  rest  where  the  breezes  sigh- 
But  the  trees  answer  not  Passion's  cry. 

Turns  the  soul  to  the  trees, 
Moving  cool  in  the  breeze, 

With  shadows  of  leaves  at  play; 
But  can  never  find  gladness, 
Forever  just  the  still  sadness, 
For  the  soul  in  its  sorrow,  the  birth  of  tomorrow 

Is  only  the  death  of  today. 

I  think  this  must  have  been  written  on  a  hard  Saturday, 
with  no  great  anticipation  that  Sunday  would  offer  any 
thing  lively. 

And  further,  upon  telegraphic  compulsion  may  I — must 
I?—add 

All  right  then;  I'll  tell  the  facts. 

My  first  "published  writing"  (as  you  insist,  when  you 
know  my  writing  never  has  been  published,  and  isn't  it  a 
mercy?)  was  a  Lit.  Prize  Story;  Princeton,  1892.  The 
prize  was  $15.00. 

First  published  writing  for  which  I  was  paid  by  a  publisher 
or  editor  was  a  "joke"  in  Life,  in  1894.  Gibson  illustrated 
this  "joke,"  though  I  sent  them  the  illustration  for  it, 
myself. 

When  they  returned  mine  I  thought  matters  over  and 
decided  they  must  have  liked  his  illustration  better  than 
they  did  mine;  but  as  they  sent  me  $1.50  for  the  "joke"  I 
concluded  not  to  make  a  disturbance. 

In  1895  they  did  print  a  picture  I  drew;  they  sent  me 
$13.00  for  it,  and  only  $7.00  for  the  accompanying  text; 
so  I  decided  that  I  was  an  illustrator  after  all. 


BOOTH    TARKINGTON  239 

These  financial  details  are  important  because  they  were 
the  determining  causes  of  my  whole  career  as  an  illustrator. 
This  career  lasted  without  any  further  remuneration  until 
1898,  when  Mr.  McClure,  recovering  from  influenza,  and 
depressed,  decided  that  his  magazine  couldn't  be  much  in^ 
jured  by  printing  my  first  novel  as  a  serial. 

Then  I  again  became  a  writer. 

That's  all,  Mr.  Editor !  And  can  you  have  such  nonsense 
printed  even  in  the  best  cause? 

MARAVENE  THOMPSON 

It  was  when  I  was  in  my  early  'teens  that  I  wrote  it. 
Forty  thousand  words!    Right  off  the  reel  I    Hot!     In 
two  months!     Just  like  that!     I  had  an  idea  that  an 
author  always  wrote  in  the  dead  hours  of  the  night.     So, 
shivering  in  bed  with  a  blanket  over  my  shoulders,  I  scrib~ 
bled  during  the  night — my  first  tale,  for  nights  and  nights. 
Which  is  why,  perhaps,  I  sent  it  to  the  Saturday  Night, 
sheets  and  sheets  of  legal   paper,   written   in   lead   pencil, 
never  revised,  read  to  no  one — (For  why  should  I  ?    Wasn't 
I  an  authors?)  I  sold  it,  the  forty  thousand  words  for  two 
hundred  dollars — (I  thought  it  a  good  price,  and  it  was,  I 
assure  you!) 

There  were  two  murders,  a  suicide,  and  the  heroine  was 
all  but  ''ruined"  three  times.  I  remember  none  of  the 
dialogue,  nothing  of  how  the  three  would-be-betrayers 
looked.  The  hero  was  tall  and  dark,  with  a  brow  like  a 
"marble  god."  (I  remember  that.  I  loved  it  so.  I  never 
thought  of  the  discomfort  of  my  poor  dear  heroine  against 
that  cold  marble.) 

I  recall  one  of  the  hero's  speeches,  the  only  one,  a  quota-? 
tion — 

"I  know  not,  I  ask  not, 

If  guilt's  in  that  heart, 
I  but  know  that  I  love  thee, 
Whatever  thou  art." 


240  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

Which  might  imply  that  my  heroine  was  not  a  guiltless 
lady.  But  I  know  she  was,  for  7  said  so,  over  and  over. 
The  editor  wrote  me  that  he  had  "cut  out  some  things"— 
that  "a  girl  who  had  nobly  resisted  the  blandishments  of 
three  roues  did  not  need  the  author  to  declare  her  pure  on 
every  page." 

He  also  wrote  that  "one  page  is  enough  to  devote  to  a 
suicide,  to  have  it  linger  over  ten  pages  is  hard  on  both  the 
suicide  and  the  reader."  (Even  then  I  had  an  idea  that  the 
editor  was  having  a  merry  time  over  my  tale.) 

Oh,  yes,  the  heroine  had  "wine-colored  hair,"  and  the 
editor  asked  if  I  meant  "white  wine  or  claret?"  In  the 
printed  page  she  had  auburn  hair.  Also,  many  things  were 
not  as  I  had  written  them — to  my  then  amazement.  And 
I  didn't  know  then  what  a  nice  editor  he  was,  nor  how 
skillfully  he  had  dressed  up  my  "meller." 

That  editor  is  about  all  I  do  remember  very  well.  What 
he  wrote  lodged  in  my  mind  and  sticks  there  now,  after  my 
tale  is  almost  wholly  forgotten.  I  can't  recall  why  my 
suicide  did  it,  nor  my  hero's  name,  nor  my  heroine's;  though 
I  think  it  was  Beatrice  or  Katherine — or  Portia.  I  had  been 
reading  Shakespeare — and  that  was  how  I  got  my  thriller. 

And  it  was  because  it  was  a  thriller  that  I  sold  it  so 
readily.  All  my  early  tales,  sold  with  the  same  ease,  I 
attribute  to  like  cause— enough  plot  and  pep  to  compensate 
the  editor  for  faulty  writing.  A  story  sent  to  McGlure's 
Magazine  brought  a  letter  from  Mr.  McClure  requesting 
me  to  call  at  his  office.  I  went  and  had  a  long  talk  with 
him  and  Mr.  John  Phillips.  They  advised  me  to  drop  the 
thriller  for  awhile  and  devote  a  few  years  to  the  story  of 
characterization.  Mr.  Phillips  said  I  was  one  of  those 
people  who  could  get  a  plot  with  one  hand  tied  behind  me, 
and  that  this  was  sometimes  a  fatal  gift,  that  it  made  sales 
too  easy  for  the  author  to  work  hard  enough  to  acquire  a 
high  standard  of  writing. 

I  followed  their  advice  and  got  my  first  bumps — rejection 
slips — slips — slips — I  went  back  to  the  "meller,"  but  some 
thing  had  happened.  I  couldn't  sell  that.  That  was  a  dis- 


MARAVENE   THOMPSON  241 

couraging  time.  But  I  finally  learned — at  least  well  enough 
to  sell  my  stuff — how  to  combine  plot  and  characterization. 
I  sold  one  story  to  almost  every  magazine  in  America  and 
several  to  English  magazines  before  I  again  sent  one  to 
McClures.  This  I  dropped  in  the  mail  box,  with  merely 
my  address  and  return  stamps.  It  was  accepted,  and  was 
the  first  of  the  "Peggy  Stories"  that  ran  in  McClure's  for 
a  year. 

But  Mr.  Phillips  was  not  then  with  McClures,  and  I 
didn't  feel  that  I  had  made  good  until  I  had  sold  a  story  to 
his  magazine,  The  American.  I  had  just  completed  a  serial, 
"The  Woman's  Law,"  frankly  a  melodrama,  almost  the 
first  line  being  "Why  did  you  kill  him?" — but  there  was 
only  one  murder  and  no  seductions  and  sudden  death,  and 
as  he  had  stated  that  he  liked  good  melodrama,  I  took  a 
chance  on  mine  now  coming  under  that  head,  and  sent  it  to 
him.  He  promptly  accepted  it.  The  American  also  pub 
lished  the  "Dorothy  Stories,"  simple  character  tales  of 
country  life. 

Mr.  S.  S.  McClure  and  Mr.  John  S.  Phillips  will  need 
no  other  epithaphs  than  those  engraved  in  letters  of  gold  on 
the  hearts  of  American  authors.  Dear,  kindly  editors,  there 
could  be  a  book  written  on  their  efforts.  And  I  like  them 
still  more  because,  like  myself,  they — on  their  own  admis 
sion  to  me — love  a  "bluggy"  tale.  For  though  I  long  ago 
eliminated  suicide  and  seduction  from  my  themes,  I  have, 
and  will  always  have,  a  weakness  for  murder. 


JULIET  WILBOR  TOMPKINS 

I  started  out  as  a  poet,  but  my  early  verse,  though  maiden 
enough,  was  scarcely  effort.     It  must  have  been  begun 
before  penmanship  had  set  in,  for  I  can  remember  stand 
ing  in  what  we  called  "the  corridor,"  a  long,  bright  gallery 
looking  on  a  California  garden,  and  dictating  to  my  mother's 
willing    pencil    an    endless    epic    of    Spring    and    domestic 
life.    In  those  happy  days  all  that  was  necessary  for  a  poem 


242  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

was  a  first  line  and  a  glowing,  stirring  feeling  about  the 
ribs. 

The  first  real  effort,  coming  half  a  dozen  years  later,  was 
a  novel,  written  secretly  and  often  by  night.  When  a  too- 
observing  family  commented  on  finding  nineteen  apricot 
stones  beside  my  bed  in  the  morning,  they  little  knew  what 
that  divine  fruit  had  nourished. 

The  novel  might  have  been  catalogued  as  by  The 
Duchess,  out  of  Fanny  Orr.  Fanny  Orr,  no  older  than  I, 
had  written  eight  or  ten  novels.  Her  latest,  "A  Wildwood 
Violet,  or  The  Chetwynde  Mystery,"  was  well  on  into  its 
second  volume;  and  when  I  found  out  that  she  had  not  yet 
decided  what  the  mystery  should  be,  the  thing  seemed  easy 
enough  even  for  me  to  undertake. 

I  feel  a  certain  embarrassment  at  setting  down  my  title, 
for  it  was  "The  Laurelei."  No,  this  was  not  humor;  I 
thought  that  was  the  way  you  spelled  it.  A  cruel  and 
beautiful  girl,  with  a  voice,  broke  a  man's  heart  by  methods 
that  I  have  forgotten.  I  only  remember  that  he  killed  him 
self  in  the  last  chapter.  And  this,  with  her  wild,  sweet  sing 
ing,  The  Laurelei  had  done. 

Things  printed  in  The  Vassar  Miscellany  would  scarcely 
count  as  published.  All  through  college  I  was  writing 
verse — during  lectures,  in  sermon  time,  while  I  was  doing 
finger  exercises  to  the  beat  of  the  metronome.  It  over 
ran  my  notebooks,  it  rose  to  celebrate  every  event  or  emo 
tion — the  glow  was  always  at  my  ribs. 

And  the  whole  four  years  I  felt  guilty:  I  was  there  to 
listen  to  the  lectures  and  sermons,  to  take  on  education,  not 
to  dream  over  rhymes.  My  conscience  hounded  me.  Yet, 
all  the  time,  by  that  loved  labor,  that  patient  search  for  the 
right  word  and  the  good  cadence,  I  was  preparing  myself 
as  no  education  could  have  prepared  me  for  the  work  ahead. 
The  verse  in  itself  had  no  value  whatsoever,  but  its  training 
was  beyond  price.  I  regret  the  guilty  misery  of  those  four 
happy  years. 

There  was  something  in  Life,  something  in  St.  Nicholas; 


JULIET    WILBOR   TOMPKINS  243 

but  the  first  printed  work  to  matter — and  almost  the  first 
short  story  I  tried — was  in  Munseys  Magazine.  I  was  in 
the  early  twenties  when  I  made  the  discovery  that  an  open 
ing  paragraph  and  a  good  warm  glow  would  at  least  launch 
a  story.  One  wrote  as  long  as  the  glow  lasted,  then  called 
for  help. 

When  this  story,  "On  the  Way  North,"  was  finished, 
some  one  brought  in  a  hospitable-looking  copy  of  Munsey's, 
until  then  unknown  to  me,  so  the  moving  finger  addressed 
the  story  there,  and  started  a  connection  that  led  to  years  on 
the  editorial  staff.  I  have  had  people  tell  me  that  they 
liked  that  first  story  better  than  anything  I  have  done  since 
— the  most  blighting,  blasting  tribute  that  a  writer  is  ever 
called  upon  to  smile  through.  One  decides  vindictively  that 
they  haven't  read  anything  since,  but  one's  fighting  courage 
is  down  for  weeks.  Don't  say  that  to  young  writers  I 


CHARLES  HANSON  TOWNE 

My  first  "poem"  was  written  on  a  slate,  in  a  hammock, 
one  summer  day  when  I  was  sixteen.  My  older 
sister,  who  had  found  out  in  some  mysterious  way 
of  my  desire  to  express  myself  in  rhyme,  saw  me  working 
busily  over  my  composition  and  clairvoyantly  knew  that  I 
was  writing  a  "poem."  She  came  stealthily  behind  me, 
while  I  was  buried  in  thought,  peered  over  my  shoulder 
where  I  was  meditating,  and  yelled  at  the  top  of  her  voice, 

"Charley's  inspired!     Charley's  inspired!" 

Furious,  and  consumed  with  shame  that  the  rest  of  the 
family,  to  say  nothing  of  the  entire  neighborhood,  should 
learn  of  my  poetic  proclivities  (why  are  we  always  ashamed 
of  writing  verse?)  I  fled,  and,  while  running,  attempted  to 
rub  from  the  slate  the  marks  of  my  guilt. 

But  I  did  not  succeed.  Had  I  done  so,  the  world  would 
have  lost  these  imperishable  lines,  which  I  had  put  down  in 
all  the  sad  seriousness  of  sixteen : 


244  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

True  written  'tis — 
Unto  all  things  a  sequel  is. 
Not  unto  certain  things — but  all ! 
Of  this  the  meaning  is  not  small. 
And  then,  methinks,  if  'tis  all  things, 

'Tis  so  of  life! 

That  complex  problem!    Can  it  be 
That  souls  another  life  shall  see 

When  what's  called  Death  shall  end  this  strife? 
Ah,  no !    The  heart  stops  throbbing  one  short  while, 
And  then  goes  on.    The  radiant  smile 
That  crowned  the  lips  of  that  poor  soul 
Returns.     The  race  unto  the  unseen  goal 
Is  once  more  won. 

The  sequel  is  begun. 

"When  does  the  soul  pass  the  final  portal?" 
Ah,  friend !    The  sequel — soul — both  are  immortal ! 

And  so,  for  my  fell  career,  so  called  (for  I  have  never 
gotten  over  the  habit  of  putting  my  thoughts,  so  called,  into 
verse),  my  sister  is  to  blame.  She  almost  stopped  me  that 
day.  For  had  she  read  my  tragic  lines,  I  am  afraid  she 
would  have  laughed  me  into  silence.  But  fate  and  whatever 
gods  there  be  were  against  her! 

The  joke  of  it  is  that  this  "poem,"  atrocious  as  it  was, 
found  favor  in  the  eyes  of  the  editor  of  The  Relig to-Philo 
sophical  Journal  of  Chicago — a  spiritualistic  sheet  now  gone 
to  another  world,  but  no  longer  having  communication  with 
us.  I  got  a  year's  subscription  for  my  screed;  and  kept  on. 

I  thought  it  was  to  be  plain  sailing.  But  no!  I  wrote 
and  wrote  before  my  next  manuscript  was  accepted,  and  I 
must  have  taken  all  the  dimes  from  my  tin  bank  to  pay 
postage.  It  was  years  before  I  got  any  money  for  my 
verses — I  get  little  enough  now. 

But  if  editors  only  knew  it,  many  a  poet  would  give  his 
wares  away  for  the  joy  of  seeing  them  in  print. 


ARTHUR   TRAIN  245 

ARTHUR  TRAIN 

I  cannot  specify  my  maiden  effort  at  writing  since  I  can 
not  remember  the  time  when  I  was  not  inventing  stories 
and  editing  private  magazines  for  my  own  childish 
amusement.  These  were  written  on  "penny  pads,"  to  pur 
chase  which  I  gave  amateur  circuses  and  theatrical  perform 
ances  in  the  garret.  By  the  time  I  was  thirteen  I  was  a 
profound  and  prolific  essayist  on  political  and  literary  topics 
for  my  school  paper,  occasionally  condescending  to  fiction 
after  the  style  of  Bulwer-Lytton. 

When  I  went  to  college  I  kept  it  up  and  swamped  the 
college  magazines  with  fresh  fiction  and  sentimental  verse 
after  which  for  a  while  the  spring  of  my  production  became 
choked  by  the  law.  But  even  when  grinding  away  on  briefs 
and  pleadings  I  always  was  scribbling. 

One  vacation,  when  on  a  camping  trip,  I  was  casting  for 
trout  in  a  deep  pool  and  by  accident  landed,  after  a  pro 
longed  struggle,  a  snapping  turtle  weighing  some  fifty 
pounds.  The  adventure  was  scientific  or  sporting,  rather 
than  literary,  but  I  wrote  it  up,  sent  it  to  Outing,  and  in 
time  received  a  check  for  $3.31.  Just  why  the  31c.  I  never 
fully  understood.  Technically,  that  was  my  "maiden  effort.'* 

A  year  or  so  later  I  wrote  a  story  entitled  "Not  at  Home," 
which  I  showed  to  Mr.  Alden  of  Harpers',  who  advised 
me  to  burn,  it.  Perhaps  I  should  have  done  so ;  but  I  disre 
garded  his  advice  and  sold  it  to  The  Smart  Set  for  $35.  I 
now  think  it  probably  the  best,  or  certainly  one  of  the  best, 
I  have  ever  written.  This  may  have  been  my  maiden  effort. 

When  next  I  felt  the  creative  impulse  I  sent  the  result 
to  McClure's,  then  at  the  height  of  its  muckraking  and 
other  glory  under  the  guiding  genius  of  the  famous  editor 
whose  name  it  bears.  The  story  was  rejected  but  when  re 
turned  to  me  it  still  bore  inadvertently  attached  to  it  a 
"rider"  containing  the  frank  opinions  of  the  editorial  read 
ers.  These  ranged  from  "weak,"  "puerile,"  "disconnected,^ 
etc.,  to  a  final  line  which  ran,  "This  man  could  write  for  us" 
and  signed  Viola  Roseboro. 


246  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

I  made  up  my  mind  that  the  man  would  write  for  her, 
redrafted  the  story,  sold  it  to  McClures  and,  I  think,  re 
ceived  $150.  If  this  was  my  "maiden  effort,"  Miss  Rose- 
boro — long  life  to  her! — was  its  real  mother.  That  was 
nearly  twenty  years  ago.  I  am  still  making  "maiden  ef 
forts." 

LOUIS  JOSEPH  VANCE 

Of  that  great  actress  Dejazet  it  is  related  that,  having 
upon  a  time  journeyed  from  Paris  to  Rouen  with  a 
troupe  of  players  whose  business  it  was  to  try  on  a 
provincial  audience  a  certain  comedy  by  the  younger  Dumas, 
she  presently  found  herself,  together  with  the  entire  company 
and  the  dramatist  himself,  haled  before  a  local  magistrate 
on  the  charge  of  taking  part  in  the  representation  of  a  play 
calculated  to  impair  the  public  morals. 

Now  and  in  the  due  course  of  the  judicial  proceedings  the 
dramatist  was  interrogated  as  to  his  personal  history. 

Questioned,  his  sonorous  accents  deposed  that  he  was  one 
Alexandre  Dumas  and  had  been  born  in  the  City  of  Paris. 

And  monsieur's  condition  in  life  was — ? 

The  opportunity  to  win  sympathy  through  an  appeal  to 
civic  pride  was  too  tempting.  The  bosom  of  the  playwright 
swelled,  a  smile  of  noble  humility  touched  his  features,  his 
majestic  arm  carved  the  hushed,  expectant  atmosphere. 

"If  I  were  not  in  Rouen,  the  city  which  gave  birth  to  the 
immortal  Corneille,"  he  declaimed,  "I  should  call  myself 
a  dramatist !" 

It  was  the  simple  magnificence  of  that  gesture,  more  than 
the  plaudits  it  earned,  which  made  such  a  profound  impres 
sion  upon  the  sensitive  artistic  spirit  of  the  actress.  And  so, 
when  her  turn  came,  when  examination  had  elicited  the 
modest  admission  that  she  was  Pauline  Virginie  Dejazet  and 
had,  like  the  illustrious  Monsieur  Dumas,  first  seen  the  light 
in  Paris,  she  awaited  with  some  comprehensive  trepidation 
the  next  question. 

Inexorable  as  Fate  it  came: 


LOUIS    JOSEPH    VANCE  247 

"And,  mademoiselle,  your  condition — ?" 

"If  I  were  not  in  Rouen,  the  city  that  burned  the  sainted 
Jeanne  d'Arc  at  the  stake,"  Dejazet  responded  with  ad 
mirable  candor,  "I  should  call  myself  a  maiden."  . 

With  like  hesitation  the  humble  manuscript  whose  in 
different  fortunes  I  am  to  recount  might  claim  to  be  my 
maiden  effort. 

For,  as  memory  serves,  I  was  everlastingly  scribbling  as 
a  boy,  and  more  or  less  aimlessly,  though  some  of  those  scrib- 
blings  were  published  entirely  without  cost  to  the  author. 

But  if  the  term  maiden  effort  (and  surely  a  broad-minded 
age  will  not  quarrel  about  the  simon-pure  significance  of  the 
adjective)  be  taken  to  mean  a  first  attempt  to  write  a  story 
sufficiently  readable  to  be  sold  for  money,  then  mine  was 
a  story  first  entitled  "The  Death  of  the  Dawn." 

Almost  I  forget  why  it  sported  that  depressing  title;  I 
think  it  must  have  been  because  Death,  something  gratui 
tously,  stepped  in  at  the  end  to  squelch  a  highly  enterprising 
case  of  love  at  first  sight. 

It  was,  of  course,  a  tragedy.  It  is  one's  belief  that  most 
maiden  efforts,  except  they  be  those  of  true  commercial 
genius,  are  conscientiously  tragic  in  design.  For  Death 
seems  to  hale  Youth  a  contingency  so  mistily  remote,  the 
very  thought  of  it  is  rich  with  the  glamour  of  high  ro 
mance.  .  .  . 

I  was  then  twenty-one  years  of  age  and  had  been  since 
eighteen  a  husband  and  since  twenty  a  father;  and  the 
weekly  stipend  of  eighteen  dollars  on  which  I  had  braved  the 
adventure  of  marriage  didn't  go  far  toward  providing  for 
the  needs  of  three  souls.  I  was  heavily  oppressed  by  debt; 
I  must  have  owed  at  least  a  hundred  dollars,  possibly  more, 
and  Something  Had  to  Be  Done  About  It.  So  I  wrote  a 
story — because  I  had  heard  that  as  much  as  a  cent  a  word 
was  sometimes  paid  for  short  stories  and  couldn't  think  of 
any  other  way  to  raise  the  wind. 

When  the  story  was  written  I  was  told  that  publishers 
looked  with  disfavor  on  holographic  manuscripts;  so  I  bor 
rowed  a  typewriting  machine  of  the  period,  a  ponderous 


248  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

contraption  called  a  Caligraph  that  halted  and  stammered 
like  a  bashful  elephant,  with  a  carriage  whose  rumble  was 
a  tumbril's  and  with  teeth  that  bit  ferociously  into  the  paper 
to  a  broken  tune  of  sharp  reports;  so  that  neighbors  com 
plained  of  my  indulging  in  home  target  practice  with  a  young 
Catling.  And,  indeed,  it  seems  quite  possible  that  this  scarred 
old  war-horse  of  a  Caligraph,  upon  which  all  my  earlier 
stuff  was  rewritten,  may  have  had  much  to  do  with  the 
type  of  fiction  with  which  my  name  has  since  become  asso 
ciated  ;  for  it  would  surely  have  been  difficult  to  write  of  any 
thing  but  battle,  murder  and  sudden  death  on  a  machine 
whose  action  had  all  the  sound  and  fury  of  the  1812  Over 
ture  of  Tschaikovski,  if  none  of  its  harmony. 

Well,  the  story  being  typed,  I  submitted  it  to  my  father 
for  an  opinion.  He  was  an  old  newspaper  man  and  a  veteran 
of  the  Civil  War ;  and  it  so  happened  that  my  manuscript  got 
into  his  hands  at  a  time  when  he  was  entertaining  another 
veteran  of  that  conflict,  though  one  who  had  fought  on  the 
Southern  side,  Colonel  Prentiss  Ingraham — author  of  some 
thing  like  two  thousand  dime  novels,  of  which  "Montezuma 
the  Merciless"  (Beadle  &  Dick)  attained  a  sale  of  more 
than  two  million  copies. 

Now  my  story  was  a  Civil  War  story,  and  for  that  rea 
son,  I  presume,  those  two  old  soldiers  liked  it  and  praised 
it  and  assured  me  that  any  editor  in  his  right  senses  would 
jump  at  the  chance  to  publish  it. 

But  as  it  turned  out,  either  all  magazine  editors  who  first 
saw  it  were  imbeciles,  I  don't  say  they  weren't,  or — there 
was  something  wrong  somewhere.  I  daresay  I  might  have 
had  fair  luck  with  the  wretched  thing  if  it  hadn't  been  for 
that  confounded  Unhappy  Ending,  a  more  heinous  crime  in 
those  days  even  than  in  these. 

Whatever  the  reason,  "The  Death  of  the  Dawn"  came 
home  to  roost  with  the  most  enervating  regularity. 

Meantime,  that  hundred  or  so  remained  unpaid ;  and  with 
my  father  and  Colonel  Ingraham  to  egg  me  on  I  wrote  an 
other  story.  This  second  effort  didn't  have  the  Unhappy 
Ending,  and  Sam  Adams  bought  it  for  the  McClure  News- 


LOUIS   JOSEPH    VANCE  249 

paper  Syndicate  at  sight  and  paid  me  $25  for  it,  and  the 
Sun  published  it  in  its  Sunday  edition.  It  was  a  great  news 
paper  in  those  days,  the  Sun  was;  and  I  have  always  felt 
that  an  editor  of  rare  acumen  and  exquisite  sympathy  and 
understanding  was  lost  to  the  magazine  world  when  Sam 
turned  himself  into  Samuel  Hopkins  Adams,  author. 

But  "The  Death  of  the  Dawn"  continued  to  wing  its 
weary  homeward  way  from  every  editor's  chair  the  country 
over. 

I  wrote  several  more  stories,  and  Sam  bought  one  of  them, 
and  the  others  never  did  sell;  and  then  I  suffered  my  first 
acute  attack  of  Being  Written  Out,  at  least  as  a  short  story 
man,  and  turned  my  failing  pen,  that  is  to  say  my  faltering 
Caligraph,  to  the  composition  of  footling  verse  and  squibs 
for  the  Children's  Pages  that  were  a  feature  of  every  self- 
respecting  Sunday  newspaper  in  those  days. 

And  "The  Death  of  the  Dawn"  enjoyed  a  well-earned 
rest  in  a  drawer  of  my  desk. 

Then  something  awful  happened,  I  quite  forget  what;  I 
only  know  that  all  of  a  sudden  I  found  myself  crushed 
squirmless  by  a  mountain  of  debt.  Again  Something  Had 
to  Be  Done  About  It.  And  by  a  fine  ironic  stroke  of  coin 
cidence  simultaneously  there  appeared  on  the  newsstands  a 
new  weekly  that  called  itself  simply  The  Brandur,  I  have 
never  understood  why. 

The  Brandur  was  printed  on  good  paper  without  cover 
or  illustrations  and  carried  few  advertisements  if  any — none, 
as  I  remember.  Its  avowed  aim  was  to  purvey  the  best  of  the 
current  literary  output  at  the  small  cost  of  five  cents  the 
copy ;  and  it  started  in  to  make  good  nobly  enough  by  print 
ing  the  first  O.  Henry  story  I  ever  happened  to  read.  More 
charming  still  I  found  its  broadcast  announcement,  which 
it  went  even  so  far  as  to  bill  in  the  cars  of  the  Elevated, 
that  it  paid  a  minimum  rate  of  five  cents  a  word  for  every 
thing  it  published,  no  matter  what  the  standing  of  the 
author. 

Inevitably  then,  and  immediately  too,  "The  Death  of  the 


250  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

Dawn"  was  resurrected,  given  a  fresh  dress  of  typing,  and 
submitted  to  The  Brandur. 

A  letter  came  promptly  from  the  editor,  asking  me  to 
call. 

His  style  was,  I  believe,  Major  Jones;  he  was  urbane, 
free-handed  and  indulgent — he  gave  me  a  cigar.  More  than 
that,  he  was  a  veteran  of  the  Civil  War.  In  the  armchair 
beside  his  desk  I  sat  dazedly  mumbling  the  cigar  and  wor 
shipping  with  round  eyes  that  princely  creature  who  was 
actually  telling  me  out  loud  that  he  purposed  purchasing 
"The  Death  of  the  Dawn"  and  furthermore  promising  to 
buy  other  stories  if  I  would  write  and  send  them  to  him. 

Five  cents  a  word ! 

"The  Death  of  the  Dawn"  was  five  thousand  words  in 
length. 

I  made  mental  calculations. 

There  was  just  one  thing  that  Major  Jones  wanted  to 
suggest,  and  did  suggest  with  enchanting  diffidence.  Not 
for  worlds  would  he  ask  me  to  do  anything  that  might  go 
against  the  fine  grain  of  my  conscience  of  an  artist,  but  it 
was  none  the  less  true  that  Readers  did  prefer  stories  with 
the  Happy  Ending,  and  if  I  could  see  my  way  clear  . 
you  know  .  .  .  Major  Jones  would  be  glad  .  .  . 

It  didn't  take  me  long  to  see  how  irrefutably  Right  was 
Major  Jones.  And  even  if  he  had  been  wrong  in  my  es 
teem,  I'm  afraid  I  must  have  humoured  him  if  only  in  recog 
nition  of  his  touching  appreciation  and  faith  in  the  future  of 
my  work. 

I  promised  to  make  the  change  as  soon  as  ever  I  could, 
and  took  the  manuscript  away  with  me;  and  the  last  words 
I  ever  heard  from  Major  Jones  were  those  in  which  he  re 
peated  his  promise  to  give  me  a  check  immediately  upon 
receipt  of  the  revised  story. 

I  imagine  it  must  have  taken  me  all  of  an  hour  to  make 
the  designated  change.  But  it  was  obvious  even  to  my  rudi 
mentary  wit  that  it  would  never  do  to  let  Major  Jones 
know  how  easy  it  was,  or  let  him  suspect  how  desperately 
I  needed  the  money.  By  main  strength  of  will  I  constrained 


LOUIS   JOSEPH    VANCE  251 

myself  to  be  devilish  shrewd  in  my  dealings  with  the  genial 
major;  and  it  was  only  after  a  lapse  of  three  days  that  I 
again  presented  myself  in  the  dignified  offices  of  The  Brandur 
with  the  manuscript  in  one  hand  and  a  violent  itch  in  the 
palm  of  the  other. 

An  office-boy  with  a  bilious  eye  and  sullen  mouth  hindered 
my  approach  to  the  sanctum  dedicated  to  the  editor. 

"Whaddya  wanta  see  Major  Jones  about?" 

I  demurred  about  gratifying  such  impertinent  inquisitive- 
ness,  and  was  still  engaged  in  formulating  a  retort  of  with 
ering  hauteur  when  he  added: 

"  'Cause  if  it's  a  manuscript  you  want  to  sell  him,  The 
Brandur  suspended  publication  a  nour  ago." 

A  wave  of  an  indifferent  hand  directed  my  attention  to 
a  notice  posted  on  the  glass  of  the  outer  door,  a  pen-written 
notice  which  I  had  overlooked  on  entering. 

One  often  marvels  and  with  reason  at  the  resilience  of 
spirit  in  authors.  Even  after  that  I  went  on  writing. 

Two  years  later,  or  three,  Anna  Steese  Richardson  pur 
chased  "The  Death  of  Dawn"  for  the  McClure  short  story 
service.  It  fetched  $25  for  "copyright  and  all  rights."  In 
order  to  make  the  sale  I  cheerfully  cut  the  damned  thing 
down  to  about  twenty-five  hundred  words,  gave  it  a  new 
title,  which  I  have  forgotten,  and — of  course! — the  Happy 
Ending. 

MRS.  SCHUYLER  VAN  RENSSELAER 

I  can  hardly  remember  a  time  when  I  was  not  writing- 
writing,  while  I  was  very  young,  either  verses  or  little 
moral  essays.     Fiction,  although  I  longed  to  achieve  it, 
I  could  not  even  attempt.    I  did  not  know  how  to  go  about 
it.     I  never  had  an  imaginative  idea  that  could  be  used  in 
prose. 

There  is  nothing  unusual,  of  course,  in  the  fact  that  verse 
came  more  easily  than  prose  of  any  kind,  or  that  before  I 
was  twelve  I  had  filled  various  copybooks  with  very  senti 
mental  poems.  But  I  think  it  was  rather  odd  that,  passion- 


252  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

ately  though  I  devoted  myself  at  times  to  such  work,  I  was 
reluctant  to  speak  of  it,  still  more  to  show  its  results,  for  no 
one  derided  or  discouraged  me.  On  the  contrary,  my  par 
ents  were  quite  foolishly  appreciative.  But  I  was  embar 
rassed  rather  than  pleased  when  they  praised  my  verses ;  and 
the  first  time  I  saw  myself  in  print  I  was  neither  embar 
rassed  nor  pleased  but  frankly  angry. 

I  had  copied  for  my  mother  some  verses  called  "Earth  is 
Beautiful."  She  gave  them  to  my  uncle;  he  was  a  friend 
of  the  editor  of  the  Evening  Post;  and  conspicuous  in  the 
northwest  corner  of  the  first  page  of  the  paper,  which  then 
had  nothing  in  the  way  of  headlines  to  overshadow  a  modest 
poem,  mine  appeared  one  evening,  without  my  name  but 
with  my  initials  and  the  explanation  that  I  was  a  girl  of 
twelve,  the  daughter  of  a  "prominent  merchant." 

Any  proper  child  would  have  been  pleased;  but  I  felt 
angry  and  outraged. 

And  as  clearly  as  I  remember  my  own  feelings,  I  remem 
ber  how  my  parents  wondered  why  I  was  not  delighted. 
I  told  them,  indeed,  that  nothing  that  belonged  to  me  ought 
to  have  been  in  any  way  disposed  of  without  my  consent; 
but  I  did  not  tell  them  that  the  main  reason  for  my  ill-tem 
per  was  that  the  poem  had  not  been  allowed  to  stand  on  its 
own  merits  but  had  been  patronizingly  displayed — apolo 
gized  for,  I  felt — as  the  work  of  a  child.  This,  then,  was 
my  maiden  effort,  if  the  term  may  be  taken  as  meaning  the 
first  of  my  efforts  that  was  published — although  published, 
so  to  say,  in  my  own  despite. 

I  wonder  if  many  other  writers  can  say  that  the  first 
sight  of  their  words  in  print  gave  them  vexation,  not  pleas 
ure? 

Far  different  were  my  sensations  when  I  first  succeeded 
in  an  effort  not  only  to  write  something,  but  to  have  it 
printed.  This  was  an  article  on  Decorative  Art  which  (I 
tell  it  for  the  encouragement  of  writers  now  taking  their 
first  steps)  was  returned  to  me  from  every  other  magazine 
in  the  country  that  I  could  think  of  but  was  accepted  by  the 
very  last  of  them.  Had  this  one  sent  it  back,  there  would 


MRS.    SCHUYLER   VAN    RENSSELAER     253 

have  been,  in  the  limited  magazine  field  of  that  day,  nowhere 
else  for  it  to  travel  to. 

What  I  might  think  of  it  now,  I  do  not  know.  But  I 
remember  that  John  La  Farge  praised  it,  and  it  is  glory 
enough  to  be  able  to  say  that  of  one's  first  adult  effort. 

BLANCHE  SHOEMAKER  WAGSTAFF 


I 


burst  into  print  at  the  age  of  ten.    At  seven  I  was  writ 
ing  this  type  of  verse: 

"I  cannot  help  where  my  love  goes — 
If  to  a  person  of  high  renown 
Or  any  one  in  all  this  town. 
I  cannot  help  where  my  love  goes 
But,  all  I  know,  it  flows- 
Forever  !" 

This  ditty  was  occasioned  by  a  violent  admiration  for  a 
young  college  man  with  Apollonian  features  whom  my  fam 
ily  dubbed  "undesirable  as  a  son-in-law."  (Early  I  was  in 
the  pangs  of  the  Sapphic  ardor.) 

At  the  age  of  ten  I  sought  a  printer  in  West  45th  Street. 
New  York  was  twenty  years  ago  like  a  little  country  village. 
The  printer  lived  in  a  white  house  with  a  veranda.  For  the 
sum  of  eleven  dollars  he  printed  my  first  literary  effusions 
in  a  four-page  leaflet,  under  the  elusive  cognomen  La  Pre 
miere. 

The  little  newspaper  consisted  of  notes  on  current  politics, 
stocks,  modes  for  cycling  and  a  cryptogram.  (I  had  been 
reading  Edgar  Allan  Poe.)  There  was  a  long  love  story, 
one  of  those  blood-curdlers,  where  the  hero,  thwarted  in 
love,  plunges  to  his  death  a  la  modern  movies.  (I  remem 
ber  whenever  I  found  myself  perplexed  by  a  plot  I  took 
refuge  in  killing  off  my  characters  with  Bluebeardian  de 
light.) 

Here  is  one  of  the  verses  from  my  little  newspaper,  called 
"Waiting  In  Vain": 


254  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

Oh,  the  longing  and  the  watching 

O'er  the  great  ocean  sea, 
The  happiness  and  joy  fulness 

Which  bring  by  ship  to  me  I 
The  bright  lights  are  shining 
'Mid  the  brilliant  lighted  street, 
Acquaintances  go  by  and  nod  when  they  meet. 

There's  the  newsboy's  startling  call, 
"Lost  the  Maryland  in  an  awful  squall!" 

"Give  me  a  paper,  sonny,"  I  say. 

"My  girl  lost — lost  in  the  spray, — 
"But  I'll  be  with  her  today!" 

My  thoughts  are  wandering 

Beyond  the  distant  shore 
Where  my  girl  awaits  me 

Who  lives  forevermore! 
Death  smites  me,  so  I'll  fly 
To  my  loved  one 
Beyond  the  sky     ..." 

Here  also,  twenty  years  ago,  the  perennial : 

W.  J.  Bryan  is  attempting  to  get  back  in  favor  with 
the  Democrats,  and  many  persons  declare  he  will  be  next 
President. 

After  this  flight  with  Pegasus,  the  leaflet  was  distributed 
amongst  friends  and  school  boys.  But  there  was  no  "La 
Seconde."  La  Premiere  was  the  beginning  and  the  end  of 
my  newspaper  juvenilia! 

Until  I  was  twenty  I  did  practically  nothing  but  write. 
I  never  played  like  other  children,  but  stole  away  with  pads 
and  pencils  to  compose  stories  and  transcribe  the  songs  which 
murmured  involuntarily  in  my  ears.  ...  I  covered 
reams  of  foolscap,  and  kept  many  diaries,  reading  also  with 
a  feverish  pleasure.  Literature  was  always  to  me  the  su 
preme  experience. 


BLANCHE    SHOEMAKER   WAGSTAFF     255 

At  sixteen  I  received  my  first  payment  for  verse,  four 
dollars.  Browning  and  Swinburne  had  been  my  chief  en 
chantments  about  this  time,  and  the  lyric  which  was  ac 
cepted  by  "Tozvn  and  Country"  was  a  momentous  event  in 
my  life.  So  intense  was  my  youthful  pride  and  joy  that  I 
never  cashed  the  check!  It  hangs  today  framed  in  my  stu 
dio! 

A  little  over  a  year  later  I  received  a  good  royalty  offer 
for  a  manuscript  of  verse,  "The  Song  of  Youth."  This  was 
published  in  Boston,  and  sold  like  wild-fire,  as  the  press 
dubbed  it  "precocity,  out  of  the  mouths  of  babes  and  suck 
lings."  It  was  a  collection  of  startling  love-songs. 

But  now  I  am  a  sedate  essayist,  critic  and  Greek  student, — 
writing  poetry  for  the  magazines  at  five  dollars  a  line ! 


CAROLYN  WELLS 

True  ease  in  writing  comes  from  art,  not  chance, 
As  those  move  easiest  who  have  learned  to  dance. 

Pope's  couplet,  like  most  draughts  of  the  Pierian  spring, 
contains  about  2.75%  of  the  real  thing.  For  many 
move  easily  and  gracefully  who  have  never  learned  to 
dance,  and  much  ease  in  writing  is  mere  chance.  However, 
like  the  man  in  the  old  story,  "I  did  not  mean  to  sing  a 
hymn,"  and  my  rhymes  came  by  chance  not  art. 

Notwithstanding  Pope's  dictum,  writing  is  not  an  art,  it 
is  nature.  It  cannot  be  learned,  it  is  inborn. 

All  of  which  is  by  way  of  correcting  the  popular  concept 
of  a  maiden  effort. 

And,  though  regretting  the  necessity  of  being  personal, 
I  must  needs  refer  to  my  own  First  Step.  First  two  steps 
rather,  for  I  made  one  in  prose,  and,  with  the  other  foot, 
one  in  verse. 

The  prose  effort  was  a  story  for  girls,  which  was  accepted 
by  The  St.  Nicholas,  and  published  serially  therein,  after 
ward  appearing  in  book  form  over  the  imprint  of  The 
Century  Co. 


256  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

A  copy  of  this  book,  "The  Story  of  Betty,"  in  a  fine,  red 
cover,  was  handed  to  me  by  the  editor  of  St.  Nicholas,  with 
the  kindly  remark,  "Here  is  your  book.  May  it  prove  to  be 
the  first  of  a  long  line  of  volumes  from  your  pen." 

His  pleasant  words  proved  prophetic,  for  well  over  a  hun 
dred  volumes  now  flank  that  first  book. 

And  yet,  referring  to  my  theory,  which  is  not  Pope's,  that 
book  has  sold  more  copies  than  any  other  I  have  written, 
and  is  still  selling  steadily,  with  a  satisfactory  royalty  state 
ment  every  year.  So  much  for  a  maiden  effort — 

My  verse-writing  is  a  slightly  different  story,  for  fancy 
steps  in  dancing  and  fancy  flings  in  meter  must  be  learned. 

At  the  time  I  was  writing  "The  Story  of  Betty"  I  chanced 
upon  a  copy  of  The  Lark  of  blessed  memory. 

Hardly  a  man  is  now  alive,  I  find,  who  remembers  that 
inimitable  (though  imitated)  masterpiece. 

At  my  first  reading  of  its  first  number,  I  was  fired  with 
a  desire  to  appear  on  its  almost  inaccessible  pages. 

A  letter  to  its  editor  brought  a  frightening  statement 
of  the  practically  insurmountable  difficulties  attending  ac 
ceptance  of  manuscript. 

Humbled,  but  far  from  discouraged,  I  began  work  on 
light  verse,  and  aided  and  greatly  abetted  by  the  editor,  who 
changed  from  censor  consecutively  to  guide,  philosopher  and 
friend,  I  finally  achieved  the  unique  position  of  a  woman 
contributor  to  The  Lark. 

But  the  achievement  came  only  after  nearly  two  years 
of  dogged  perseverance  and  desperately  hard  work. 

My  teacher  was  a  stickler  for  perfection  of  mechanism  in 
the  matter  of  construction — and  English  shapes  as  well  as 
French  forms  must  have  no  tiniest  flaw  in  their  make-up. 

Wherefore,  urged  on  by  a  determination  to  succeed  and 
helped  along  by  harsh  criticism  and  dire  condemnation  from 
my  preceptor,  I  learned  the  rudiments  of  poetic  architecture 
— I  learned  to  dance  in  rhyme. 

But  all  this  refers  only  to  manner,  not  to  matter.  Versi 
fying  may  be  achieved,  but  verse,  as  Oliver  Herford  has 
said,  is  a  gift — a  birthday  gift. 


CAROLYN    WELLS  257 

And  yet,  my  maiden  effort,  as  it  finally  appeared  on  the 
pages  of  The  Larkj  was  in  prose,  after  all !  It  was  entitled 
"Solistry"  and  described  a  method  of  telling  character  by  the 
lines  on  the  sole  of  the  feet. 

However,  all  the  rejected  ballades,  villanelles,  panto 
mimes  and  such  rickshaws  were  offered  to  more  catholic- 
minded  periodicals  with  gratifying  success,  so  I  concluded 
that  Light  Verse  was  my  Happy  Hunting  Ground,  and  I 
continued  to  browse  therein. 

And  so,  while  merit  in  writing  is  God-given,  I  claim 
that  with  the  great  majority  of  writers,  the  maiden  effort 
(not  now  considering  artificial  forms)  is  quite  as  likely  to 
be  an  author's  masterpiece,  as  is  the  fruit  of  his  maturer 
years. 

At  least,  this  is  true  of  great  authors,  and  ought  to  be  true 
of  the  rest  of  us. 

STEWART  EDWARD  WHITE 

I  have  been  asked  to  tell  something  about  my  maiden 
effort  in  literary  work.  On  examining  the  happy  fam 
ily  of  literary  progeny  I  have  gathered  about  me  in 
the  course  of  twenty  years,  I  discover  that  there  are  a  num 
ber  of  those  charming  damsels. 

For  example,  there  is  the  first  thing  I  ever  wrote  and 
hoped  to  get  published;  and  there  is  the  first  thing  I  ever 
wrote  and  did  get  published.  These  fair  creatures  are  quite 
different  individuals  from  the  first  thing  of  mine  that  was 
both  published  and  paid  for,  Oh,  quite  different;  and  con 
siderably  older. 

And  I  class  the  first  serial  as  a  maiden;  at  least  I  have 
never  had  cause  to  suspect  her;  and  I  assure  you  she  was 
entirely  respectable. 

Since  there  is  doubt  as  to  which  of  this  galaxy  of  youth 
and  freshness  is  indicated  by  the  specifications  laid  down  for 
me,  perhaps  it  would  be  as  well  to  trot  them  out  in  turn 
and  let  you  take  your  choice. 


258  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

The  first  thing  I  ever  wrote  and  hoped  to  get  published — 
but  did  not,  thank  Heaven! — was  what  might  be  called  a 
short  serial  called  "Aliris." 

It  was  deeply  symbolical.  Its  scene  was  in  Arabia,  prin 
cipally  because  I  knew  so  little  about  Arabia,  and  I  was 
strong  on  local  color  swiped  from  the  County  Library. 

The  hero  about  fitted  his  name.  He  was  Tempted  in 
all  sorts  of  ways,  I  remember;  but  Resisting  Nobly,  he  was 
at  last  taken  by  the  Angel  Azrael  to  a  point  where  a  bird's- 
eye-view  of  Infinity  showed  him  that  if  the  slow  movements 
of  the  planets  and  stars  and  suns  were  speeded  up  sufficient 
ly — which  is  only  a  matter  of  relativity,  naturally — they 
would  descry  words  or  symbols;  just  as  a  brand  waved 
rapidly  enough  would  make  a  circle  of  fire.  These  words  or 
symbols  spelled  the  secret  of  the  Universe,  which  the  smug 
Aliris  had  failed  to  find  in  these  aforementioned  Tempta 
tions. 

What  that  secret  was  has  escaped  me  for  the  moment; 
as  has  the  ultimate  fate  of  my  silky  hero.  He  must  have 
been  about  steen  million  years  in  the  future;  unless  they 
had  some  sort  of  reverse  process,  like  rewinding  a  film. 

This  masterpiece  met  with  only  dazed  incredulity  from 
those  to  whom  it  was  submitted.  That  was  before  the  days 
of  Motion  Pictures.  I  am  sure  I  could  get  it  over  now  if  I 
could  find  the  MSS. 

The  first  thing  I  wrote  and  did  get  published  was  a  much 
more  sober  creature. 

In  my  extreme  youth  I  lived  much  in  the  woods;  and 
naturally  noted  what  existed  therein  and  the  manner  of  its 
existence.  In  a  moment  of  expansion  I  wrote  in  plain  Eng 
lish  on  one  side  the  paper  a  few  remarks  about  Nuthatches, 
Woodpeckers,  Kinglets  and  Yellow  Rumps,  and  how  they 
had  beat  it  just  before  a  storm,  which  same  was  sagacious 
of  them.  I  got  this  over  in  300  words;  and  sent  it  to  a 
small  sheet  called  The  Oologist. 

It  was  published,  with  my  name  at  the  bottom.  This 
memorable  date  was  June,  1890.  That  was  also  the  date 
on  which  I  started  my  first  scrap-book. 

The  years  rolled  on.     I  continued  to  write  about  birds 


STEWART   EDWARD   WHITE  259 

and  sich,  not  only  for  The  Oologist,  but  for  such  more 
august  journals  as  The  Wolverine  Naturalist,  Nature's 
Realm,  The  Ornithologist,  and  The  Breeder  and  Sports 
man,  all  of  which  are  of  course  as  well  known  to  you  as  The 
Saturday  Evening  Post.  I  got  so  erudite  on  the  dicky  birds, 
that  I  acquired  a  reputation  for  long  white  whiskers. 

More  years  rolled  on.  I  went  to  and  out  of  college:  I 
invaded  and  retreated  from  the  goldfields  of  the  West.  I 
landed  for  a  law  course  in  Columbia  University. 

Just  on  the  side,  and  because  I  admired  the  man,  I  took 
a  class  on  the  short  story  under  Professor  Brander  Mat 
thews. 

The  time  came  when  I  had  to  write  one,  which  same  I 
did.  Professor  Matthews  saw  something  in  it,  and  advised 
me  to  submit  it.  I  did  so,  to  Short  Stories.  They  accepted 
it,  paid  me  ten  dollars  for  it,  and  so  launched  me  on  a  pro 
fessional  career.  I  did  other  short  stories,  for  Lippincott's 
The  Argonaut,  Munseys,  and  McClure's.  For  most  of 
these  I  received  twenty-five  dollars.  McClure's  paid  me  fifty 
dollars  for  the  one  they  took;  but  they  held  the  English 
rights,  and  got  most  of  it  back;  so  I  figured  twenty-five  as 
magnificent  and  sufficient. 

About  this  time  I  finished  two  books  I  had  been  working 
on  simultaneously,  called  "The  Claim  Jumpers"  and  "The 
Westerners."  From  my  short  story  writing  I  had  learned 
that  it  is  a  good  idea  to  write  about  something  with  which 
you  are  familiar,  and  to  put  it  into  plain  language. 

The  Westerners  I  sent  in  to  Munsey's.  They  wrote  that 
they  would  take  it  and  mentioned  that  they  thought  five 
hundred  dollars  would  be  about  right. 

I  did  not  believe  them.  As  I  happened  to  be  in  New 
York  at  the  moment,  I  hustled  around  to  the  office.  Nobody 
had  corrected  the  mistake.  I  asked  if  they  could  pay  me 
then.  They  said  they  could.  I  asked  if  they  had  cash 
rather  than  a  check.  They  looked  surprised;  but  said  they 
would  see. 

I  was  afraid  they  would  find  out  their  mistake  and  stop 
payment  on  a  check  before  I  could  get  it  cashed. 

They  gave  the  amount  to  me  in  fives  and  tens;  and  the 


260  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

result  was  an  imposing  roll.  I  had  not  really  grasped  the 
fact  that  there  could  be  so  much  money  in  the  world. 

New  York  was  large,  and  they  did  not  know  where  I 
lived,  so  after  I  got  to  the  street  I  felt  comparatively  safe. 
I  have  never  been  so  well  paid  for  a  serial  since.  Oh  yes, 
I  have  had  more  money  paid  me;  but  never  knew  the  thrill. 

So  there  are  my  maiden  efforts.  Take  your  choice  of  the 
pretty  creatures. 

WILLIAM  ALLEN  WHITE 

My  first  literary  effort  was  composed  when  I  was  a 
printer's  devil  in   1885. 
I  was  set  at  the  task  of  getting  up  copy  for  the 
paper  and  I  went  to  work  and  set  up  out  of  my  own  head  an 
obituary  of  Samuel  J.  Tilden.    Not  showing  it  to  the  Editor, 
I  turned  it  in  to  the  proofreader,  and  he  turned  it  in,  and  it 
appeared  in  the  paper. 

The  Editor  never  said  anything  to  me  about  it,  but  when 
the  paper  was  out  I  happened  to  be  where  the  editor  of  the 
opposition  paper  was  reading  our  paper  and  heard  him 
laughing  fit  to  kill  at  my  first  effusion.  He  thought  it  was 
written  by  our  Editor,  and  as  it  was  not  in  his  style  and  was 
in  a  rather  florid  lugubrious  style,  the  opposition  editor  was 
laughing  hilariously  at  the  fool  editorial  in  our  paper. 

It  was  a  rather  sad  experience  for  a  young  author. 

After  that,  I  confined  my  literary  efforts  to  setting  up 
the  local  items  when  I  was  at  the  case,  rather  than  editorial 
effusions. 

MARGARET  WIDDEMER 

It  is  lost;  lost  irretrievably. 
It  was  dictated  to  a  devoted  aunt  at  the  age  of  four, 
and  mailed  by  her  to  the  children's  page  of  either  The 
Christian  Advocate  or  The  Churchman.     And  it  was  pub 
lished.     They  headed  it  "A  Little  Poetess."    A  letter,  also 
by  me,  went  with  it;  the  consciously  infantine  letter,  I  have 


MARGARET   WIDDEMER  261 

no  doubt,  which  small  children  usually  send  to  pages  for 
publishing  their  letters,  if  such,  with  their  accompanying 
Aunt  Sunshines  and  Grandma  Grays,  still  exist. 

The  poem  began  "Goldenrod,  O  Goldenrod !" — that  much 
I  can  remember.  It  wasn't  more  than  a  quatrain.  What 
happened  to  the  goldenrod  in  the  other  three  lines  I  have 
no  idea  at  all.  I  can  remember  seeing  the  goldenrod  (the 
original)  as  I  was  driven  along  in  the  hated  Sunday  phaeton 
of  my  infancy  and  bursting  into  verse  about  it;  but  the 
verse  itself  is  dead  to  fame. 

There  was  another  one  though  which  I  do  remember;  I 
wish  I  didn't.  I  was  seven  by  this  time  and  having  been 
taught  to  read  before  I  was  five  by  more  fond  relatives,  had 
discovered  Adelaide  Anne  Proctor  and  Longfellow,  and  felt 
that  I  ought  to  do  what  Adelaide  did.  So  I  sat  down  at  my 
grandfather's  study  table  and  did  this: 

Dear,  let  us  keep  love's  temple 

Sacred  and  far  apart 
From  the  little  frets  and  worries 

That  sear  and  scar  the  heart; 
For  that  is  Love's  own  temple 

And  where  he  must  always  dwell 
From  the  time  before  the  wedding 

Till  he  hears  the  funeral  knell. 

Though  on  the  whole  it  isn't  so  bad  for  seven ! 

I  had  been  brought  up  so  much  with  grown  people  that 
I  had  what  seems  now  a  very  good  vocabulary.  It  is,  I  con 
fess,  a  little  offensively  moral,  but  in  those  days  I  felt  that 
one  had  to  be  moral  if  one  did  poems.  That  is,  unless  one 
did  love-poems.  Then  one  had  to  be  heartbroken.  In  fact, 
I  was  conscientiously  heartbroken  in  poetry  long  after  I 
was  grown  up  and  selling  poetry  to  adult  magazines. 

As  for  my  maiden  prose  effort,  as  I  wrote  from  the  time 
I  knew  how  to  make  a  pen  work,  that,  too,  is  doubtless  dead. 
I  remember  something  called  "Mabel's  Visit  to  Holiday- 
Land,"  which  even  now  seems  a  luscious  subject.  I  only  got 
her  as  far  as  Fourth-of-July  Land,  because  I  wrote  so  slowly 


262  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

and  with  such  manual  difficulty;  for  by  now  the  devoted 
aunt  had  rebelled  at  being  my  amanuensis.  She  wrote  her 
self ;  and  I  suppose  wanted  a  little  time  for  it. 

But  the  first  thing  I  ever  published!  It  was  a  very 
snappy  magazine,  and  I  got  eight  dollars  for  it,  it  being 
a  three-thousand  word  story.  As  I  was  a  minister's  daugh 
ter  of  nineteen  it  was  bright  purple  in  atmosphere.  It  seems 
to  me  that  it  began: 

The  girl  threw  her  supple,  scarlet-clad  body  back 
against  the  man's  knees.  She  was  like  a  little  flame 
leaping  up.  "It's  no  use,"  she  said,  dully.  "I  used 
your  love  for  a  drug  but  it  does  not  drug  me." 

The  man,  a  kind  soul,  reasoned  with  her  for  the  rest  of 
the  story.  Finally,  he  gave  her  a  different  variety  of  kiss 
from  the  ones  which,  from  conscientious  motives,  he  had 
been  dealing  out  till  then,  and  she  found  herself  properly 
anesthetized.  I  don't  believe  I  could  do  it  now — any  of  it. 
(My  mother  had  not  burned  "Three  Weeks"  soon  enough. 
I'd  read  it  through  twice  before  she  found  it  under  the  mat 
tress.) 

After  that  I  went  to  work  at  short  stories  and  romances 
that  people  bought.  I  used  to  be  introduced  with  the  aside: 
"Very  young — just  beginning  to  write." 

They  (as  I  would  have  said  ten  years  before)  little  knew! 

KATE  DOUGLAS  WIGGIN 

My  real  advent  into  print  was  a  three-part  story,  ac 
cepted  by  The  St.  Nicholas,  and  paid  for  (mirabile 
dictu)  to  the  extent  of  $150. 

I  was  seventeen;  and  why  I  did  not  consider  myself  a 
full-fledged  author  embarked  upon  a  successful  career  I  can 
hardly  tell ;  but  a  period  of  common-sense  overtook  me  with 
considerable  severity.  I  examined  myself  and  though  I  dis 
covered  an  intense  desire  to  write  I  discovered  nothing  to 
write  about.  I  had  neither  knowledge  nor  experience,  nor 
yet  the  genius  which  supplies  at  a  pinch  the  place  of  both ;  so 


KATE    DOUGLAS    WIGGIN  263 

somewhat  regretfully,  I  turned  my  back  on  literature  (the 
muse  showing  a  most  unflattering  indifference)  and  took  a 
peep  into  life. 

All  my  instincts  led  me  towards  work  with  children, 
so  I  studied  educational  methods  for  a  year  and  a  half,  finish 
ing  with  a  course  of  kindergarten  theory  and  practice.  Then 
most  unexpectedly  I  found  myself  in  the  position  of  organ 
izing  the  first  free  kindergarten  work  west  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  my  sphere  of  effort  being  a  precinct  in  San  Fran 
cisco  known  as  "Tar  Flat." 

This  is  not  the  place  to  describe  that  experiment  which 
under  favoring  circumstances  took  root,  blossomed  and 
bore  fruit  all  up  and  down  the  Pacific  Coast.  Suffice  it 
to  say  I  was  too  busy  with  living  to  think  of  writing.  I 
was  helping,  in  my  woman's  way  (I  fear  at  first  it  was  but 
a  girl's  way)  to  do  my  share  of  the  world's  work,  and  it 
absorbed  all  my  energies  of  mind,  body  and  soul. 

But  though  the  public  was  generous  there  was  never 
money  enough!  Fifty  children  under  school  age,  between 
four  and  six,  were  enrolled,  but  the  procession  of  waiting 
mothers  grew  longer  daily.  Patrick's  mother,  Henri's, 
Levi's,  Angelo's,  Leo's,  Katarina's,  Selma's,  Alexandrina's 
stood  outside  asking  when  there  would  be  room  for  more 
children. 

On  a  certain  October  day  I  wondered  to  myself  could  I 
write  a  story,  publish  it  in  paper  covers  and  sell  it  here  and 
there  for  a  modest  price,  the  profits  to  help  towards  the  es 
tablishment  of  a  second  kindergarten? 

Preparations  for  Christmas  were  already  in  the  air,  and 
as  I  sat  down  at  my  desk  in  a  holiday  spirit,  I  wrote  in  a 
few  days  my  real  first  book,  "The  Birds'  Christmas  Carol." 
It  was  the  simplest  of  all  possible  simple  tales,  the  record 
of  a  lame  child's  life;  a  child  born  on  Christmas  Day  and 
named  Carol  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bird,  her  father  and  mother. 

The  Dark  Ages  in  which  I  wrote  were  full  of  literary 
Herods  who  put  to  death  all  the  young  children  within 
their  vicinity,  and  I  was  no  exception.  What  saved  me 
finally  was  a  rudimentary  sense  of  humor  that  flourished 


264  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

even  in  the  life  I  was  living ;  a  life  in  which  I  saw  pain  and 
suffering,  poverty  and  wretchedness,  cruelty  and  wickedness 
struggling  against  the  powers  for  good  that  lifted  their 
heads  here  and  there,  battling  courageously  and  often  over 
coming. 

If  Carol  Bird  and  her  family  were  inclined  to  sentimen 
tality  (as  I  have  reason  to  fear),  the  Ruggles  brood  who 
lived  "in  the  rear"  were  perhaps  a  wholesome  antidote.  Mrs. 
Ruggles,  and  the  nine  big,  middle-sized  and  little  Ruggleses, 
who  inhabited  a  small  house  in  an  alley  that  backed  on  the 
Bird  mansion — these  furnished  a  study  of  contrasts  and  gave 
a  certain  amount  of  fun  to  counteract  my  somewhat  juve 
nile  tendency  to  tears. 

All  this  was  more  than  thirty-five  years  ago.  How  could 
one  suppose  that  the  unpretentious  tale  would  endure  through 
the  lapse  of  years?  Yet  it  appeared  again  in  a  brave  new 
dress  with  illuminated  borders  to  its  pages  and  richly  colored 
illustrations,  properly  grateful,  I  hope,  but  never  scornful 
of  the  paper  covers  in  which  it  was  born. 

I  wrote  a  preface  to  that  new  edition,  a  preface  in  which 
I  have  addressed,  not  the  public,  but  the  book  itself,  which 
has  grown  through  the  passage  of  time,  to  possess  a  kind  of 
entity  of  its  own. 

To  my  Dear  First  Book  (so  I  began)  : 

Here  you  are  on  my  desk  again  after  twenty-eight 
years,  in  which  you  have  worn  out  your  plates  several 
times  and  richly  earned  your  fine  new  attire. 

You  have  been  a  good  friend  to  me,  my  book — none 
better.  .  .  .  At  the  very  first,  you  earned  the  where 
withal  to  take  a  group  of  children  out  of  the  confusion 
and  dangers  of  squalid  streets  and  transport  them  into  a 
place  of  sunshine,  safety  and  gladness.  Then  you 
took  my  hand  and  led  me  into  the  bigger,  crowded 
world  where  the  public  lives.  You  brought  me  all  the 
new,  strange  experiences  that  are  so  thrilling  to  the 
neophyte.  The  very  sight  of  your  familiar  title  brings 
them  back  afresh!  Proof-sheets  in  galleys,  of  which 
one  prated  learnedly  to  one's  awe-stricken  family;  then 


KATE   DOUGLAS   WIGGIN  265 

the  Thing  Itself,  in  covers;  and  as  one  opened  them 
tremblingly  in  secret  there  pounced  from  the  text  some 
clumsy  phrase  one  never  noted  before  in  all  one's  weary 
quest  for  errors.  Then  reviews,  mingling  praise  and 
blame;  then  letters  from  strangers;  then,  years  after, 
the  story  smiling  at  one  cheerily,  pathetically,  gratefully, 
from  patient  rows  of  raised  letters  printed  for  blind 
eyes;  then,  finally,  the  sight  of  it  translated  into  many 
foreign  tongues. 

Would  that  I  had  had  more  art — even  at  the  ex 
pense  of  having  had  less  heart — with  which  to  endow 
you,  but  I  gave  you  all  of  both  I  had  to  give,  and  one 
can  do  no  more.  In  return  you  have  repaid  me  in  ways 
tangible  and  intangible,  ways  most  rare  and  beautiful, 
even  to  bringing  me  friendships  in  strange  lands,  where 
people  have  welcomed  me  for  your  sake.  Then  go, 
little  book  on  your  last  journey  into  the  world.  Here 
are  my  thanks,  good  comrade,  and  here  my  blessing! 
Hail  and  farewell ! 

Does  all  this  have  too  sentimental  a  ring?  I  hope  not, 
but  at  any  rate,  one  always  has  a  bit  of  license  where  a  first 
love  or  a  first  book  are  concerned,  particularly  if  the  first 
love  or  first  book  have  lasted  over  the  silver  wedding  day. 


MARY  E.  WILKINS 

In  reality  I  suppose  my  "maiden  effort"  was  poetry.     I 
suppose   that    is    nearly   everybody's    maiden   effort,    if 
they  own  up,  but  since  no  sane  person  can  possibly  call 
me  a  success  in  poetry,  I  begin  with  prose. 

It  was  a  prize  story.  I  do  not  own  a  copy.  The  one 
and  only  was  loaned  and  never  returned  and  is  somewhere, 
with  unreturned  umbrellas,  in  limbo. 

It  is  a  pity  I  haven't  it,  because  as  I  remember  it,  it  was 
quite  passable  as  an  imitation  of  Charles  Dickens.  The  title 
was  "A  Shadow  Family." 


266  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

The  story  won  a  prize  of  fifty  dollars  and  when  I  went 
with  a  friend  to  claim  it  the  Prize  Committee  thought  the 
friend  must  have  written  the  story  because  I  did  not  look 
as  if  I  knew  enough.  She  could  easily  have  secured  my 
prize,  but  she  had  a  New  England  conscience.  That  fifty 
dollars  still  looms  up  as  larger  than  all  the  billions  of  debt 
consequent  upon  the  World  War.  Lucky  for  Europe  that 
she  does  not  have  to  pay  that  fifty  dollars.  It  has  the  mar 
ket  value  of  the  Solar  System. 

The  first  step  I  took  upon  receiving  it  was  to  invest  cau 
tiously  a  small  portion  in  souvenirs  bought  in  ten  cent  stores, 
then  in  their  sweet  infancy.  Then  I  gave  away  the  rest. 

I  hope  nobody  will  think  me  too  good  for  earth  because  of 
that.  I  gave  joyfully  and  it  is  the  one  and  only  instance 
where  my  bread  has  been  returned  to  me  manyfold. 

I  immediately  left  poetry  as  a  result  of  that  story  and  sent 
"Two  Old  Lovers"  to  Harpers'  Bazaar.  It  was  accepted 
after  being  nearly  turned  down  because  the  editor  at  first 
glance  at  my  handwriting  thought  it  was  the  infantile  effort 
of  a  child,  not  worth  reading. 

When  I  got  the  check  for  that  out  of  the  post-office  box 
I  nearly  collapsed  with  pure  pride  and  delight. 

I  put  one  dollar  of  that  into  an  envelope  and  sent  it  to 
an  impecunious  woman  whom  I  did  not  know.  I  bought 
a  souvenir  for  my  father,  one  for  my  mother,  and  oil  paints 
for  myself.  Then  I  painted  some  pansies  from  life  on  a 
little  piece  of  Academy  board.  That  piece  of  art  is  in  the 
same  limbo  with  the  umbrellas  and  the  prize  story. 

Then — after  my  father  died — my  assets  were  four  dollars 
in  hand  and  a  mortgaged  half  of  a  building, — I  sold  my  first 
story  to  Harper  s  Magazine,  and  received  a  check  for  seventy- 
five  dollars. 

I  fear  my  altruism  and  love  for  art  were  at  that  time  in 
abeyance  for  I  know  only  too  well  what  I  did  with  that 
sum.  I  gave  away  a  tenth,  as  an  old  man  might  carry  a 
chestnut  in  the  pocket  as  a  charm  against  rheumatism;  but 
I  was  wearing  shabby  black.  I  bought  at  once  a  fine  gown, 
trimmed  with  black  fur,  and  a  fur-trimmed  silk  coat,  and 


MAR,Y   E.  WILKINS  267 

sailed  down  Main  Street  in  a  certain  village,  disgracefully 
more  elated  over  my  appearance  than  possible  literary  suc 
cess. 

However,  I  give  myself  the  tardy  credit  of  being  perfectly 
conscious,  whether  or  not  I  have  succeeded,  in  caring  more 
in  my  heart  for  the  art  of  my  work  than  for  anything  else. 

MARGUERITE  WILKINSON 

I  began  making  maiden  efforts  when  I  was  about  five  years 
old,  before  my  presumably  chubby  fingers  knew  how  to 
form  the  letters  of  English  script.     I  may  have  been  a 
year  or  two  older — there  is  no  certain  record — when  I  com 
posed  the  following  charming  lyric : 

Violet  wild,  I  know  thee  well, 
For  thy  shadow  falls  on  the  mossy  dell 
Where  soft  winds  kiss  each  pretty  blue  petal 
And  speak  to  my  heart  while  the  dew  doth  settle. 

Please  note  the  skill  of  that  rhyme— "petal"— "settle." 
And  that  word  "doth"! 

I  was  a  little  bit  older  when  I  wrote  a  poem  that  was 
inspired  by  Gray's  "Elegy."  It  was  called  "Down  Upon  the 
Hillside"  and  I  thought  it  quite  as  good  as  the  old  master 
piece  that  had  inspired  it.  I  was  a  Freshman  in  High  School 
when  I  made  my  maiden  effort  to  write  a  sonnet.  I  ar 
ranged  the  lines  properly  but  the  first  line  limped. 

What  is  hope  when  flat  refusal  tolls  her  knell? 

The  study  of  the  sonnet  led  to  a  lively  intellectual  inter 
est  in  scansion.  I  tried  all  the  experiments  that  my  books 
suggested.  I  translated  the  French,  German,  Latin  and 
Greek  poets  whose  work  I  studied  in  school  into  metrical 
English.  I  was  never  satisfied  with  the  results,  however, 
and  I  began  to  have  ideas  of  my  own  about  what  Saintsbury 
calls  "the  prosodic  genius"  of  the  English  language.  I 
found  it  very  easy  to  make  verse  according  to  the  rules  in 


268  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

the  rhetorics — a  quite  mechanical  process.  But  I  realized 
that,  having  made  verse  correctly,  I  had  not  made  poetry. 

Then  I  came  across  Whitman's  poetry  and  for  a  time  I 
thought  that,  after  all,  thought  and  feeling  were  more  im 
portant  than  form.  But  that  was  only  for  a  very  short  time. 
When  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  Lanier  he  became, 
through  his  great  book,  "The  Science  of  English  Verse," 
a  permanent  and  important  influence  in  my  life.  I  still 
believe  that  his  theory  of  rhythm  is  absolutely  sound,  as 
far  as  it  goes,  and  that  all  young  poets  should  study  him. 
He  shows  clearly  that  a  poem  ought  to  have  a  well-wrought- 
out  design,  what  is  often  called  "form,"  but  he  also  shows 
how  rhythms  can  be  used  much  more  freely  than  they  were 
used  in  the  period  preceding  our  own,  more  freely  than  they 
have  ever  been  used  by  minor  poets  of  any  period,  without 
losing  the  mnemonic  values  that  makers  of  modern  free 
verse  usually  do  lose. 

While  I  was  still  in  college  I  won  several  small  cash 
prizes  for  maiden  efforts  in  various  kinds  of  prose  and  verse. 
My  first  poem  was  accepted  by  a  Western  magazine  for 
mothers,  whose  exact  title  I  have  forgotten;  but  the  maga 
zine  suspended  publication  before  my  poem  appeared — a 
bitter  blow! 

My  first  bit  of  prose  to  be  accepted  was  a  short  sketch 
describing  a  little  girl  whose  feelings  had  been  hurt  by  an 
unkind  grown-up.  It  was  called  "A  Child's  Gift"  and  was 
published  by  The  Young  Churchman  in  Milwaukee.  With 
the  three  dollars  which  they  paid  me  for  it  I  bought  a  flam 
boyant  water  color  sketch  of  a  parrot  on  a  branch  painted  in 
fifteen  minutes  by  T.  Aoki,  Japanese  artist.  This  I  of 
fered  to  my  mother  as  the  first  fruit  of  my  labor  with  the  pen. 

Shortly  after  that,  Bannister  Merwin,  then  with  F.  A. 
Munsey,  accepted  a  short  story  and  a  poem.  The  short 
story  was  called,  "The  End  of  the  Race."  Mr.  Merwin 
most  kindly  criticized  a  good  many  of  my  stories  for  me, 
hoping  that  I  could  write  more  that  would  be  available. 
But  that  was  not  my  gift.  I  have  always  hoped  that  some 


MARGUERITE   WILKINSON  269 

day  I  might  meet  him  and  be  able  to  thank  him  personally 
for  taking  so  much  trouble. 

Then  William  Hayes  Ward  of  The  Independent  began 
to  accept  my  poetry  and  gave  me  some  excellent  advice.  The 
best  of  my  early  verse  was  published  in  that  magazine  to 
which  I  have  been  proud  and  happy  to  contribute  much  of 
my  work,  and  in  The  Craftsman,  whose  kindly  Managing 
Editor,  Mary  Fanton  Roberts,  is  now  Editor  of  The  Touch 
stone,  to  which  magazine  I  am  a  regular  contributor. 

When  my  first  effort  to  "make"  The  Craftsman  made  it, 
I  went  to  see  Mrs.  Roberts  and  asked  her  why  the  little 
poem  had  been  accepted. 

"Let  me  see,"  she  said,  quizzically — "it  may  have  been 
because  there  was  nothing  in  it  about  Phoebus  Apollo !" 

Editors  have  always  treated  me  well.  I  am  as  grateful 
to  them  now  for  rejecting  most  of  the  things  they  rejected 
as  for  accepting  the  things  they  accepted.  And  I  am  more 
grateful  to  the  editors  who  helped  me  in  the  hard  days  of 
beginning  than  to  any  others,  naturally.  May  they  find 
an  Elysium  where  authors  will  delight  to  give  them  fame 
and  do  them  honor! 

BEN  AMES  WILLIAMS 

I  had   been   bombarding   editors   for   four  years  without 
breaching  their  fortifications — (technical  accuracy).     If 
the  hundred  or  so  of  stories  written  and   returned  to 
oblivion   during  that  period   are   maiden   efforts,   you   may 
make  the  most  of  them. 

I  set  out  to  write  the  hundred  and  first,  and  write  it  so 
that  it  would  sell. 

I  had  tried  to  sell  stories  on  plot,  to  sell  them  on  descrip 
tion,  to  sell  them  on  incident,  to  sell  them  on  style;  and 
had  failed. 

This  time  I  set  out  to  sell  one  on  characterization.  The 
test  was  this:  that  each  character  should  be  easily  identified 
from  any  utterance  of  that  character  in  the  story. 


270  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

1.  There  was  an  old  darky,  who  talked  in  dialect.  That 
was  easy  enough.  2.  There  was  a  maiden  aunt  who  was 
very,  very  prim  indeed ;  and  her  conversation  made  this 
plain.  3.  There  was  another  aunt  who  was  a  horsey  suf 
fragette  and  sounded  like  one.  4.  The  young  man  who 
carried  the  burdens  and  wore  the  wings  of  the  hero  stut 
tered  on  the  first  word  of  every  sentence.  5.  The  heroine 
alone  talked  normally.  It  was  a  relief  to  deal  with  her. 

Such  phrases  as  "said  Aunt  Sabrina,"  or  "answered  John" 
were  entirely  superfluous  in  that  tale.  The  dialogue  ran 
like  this: 

"Sh-Sh-She's  a  w-w-wonder,  Aunt  Sabrina." 

"You're  a  dear  to  think  so,  John!" 

"Well,  my  dear,  you  are  a  promising  young  filly, 
you  know." 

"Why  Laura,  I'm  afraid  your  language  is  somewhat 
uncouth  for  unaccustomed  ears." 

"Lawdy,  Mis'  Sabrina,  dat  chile's  used  to  langwidge. 
She  wu'ks  on  a  newspaper." 

And  so  on;  and  so  on.  It  was  called  "The  Wings  of 
'Lias";  and  Mr.  MacLean  bought  it  for  Smith's  Magazine 
— on  condition.  The  condition  was  that  I  cut  out  the 
young  man's  stuttering,  the  suffragist's  horseyness,  the  other 
aunt's  primness,  and  temper  the  dialect  of  the  darky. 

I  did.  When  I  was  through,  you  couldn't  tell  one  char 
acter  from  another.  But  he  took  the  story,  and  printed 
it,  too. 

JOHN  FLEMING  WILSON 

That  people  should  call  the  first-born  of  genius  a  maiden 
effort  is  just  like  them.     But  it  is  nothing  compared 
to  the  terms  they  use  about  one's  later  work;  so  I 
for  one  shall  not  complain. 

I  never  thought  of  myself  as  an  author  until  I  had  com 
pleted  my  college  course — completed  it  as  far  as  an  unsym 
pathetic  faculty  permitted. 


JOHN    FLEMING   WILSON  271 

I  can  recall  no  yearnings,  no  first  intimations  of  immorality 
during  the  long  years  I  divided  my  time  between  going  to 
and  fro  upon  a  delightful  earth  and  studying  the  works  of 
great  men. 

And  I  recall  with  great  vividness  the  afternoon  when, 
perforce  of  nostalgia  for  a  land  thousands  of  miles  away, 
I  sat  me  down  at  a  table  in  a  grimly  scholastic  hall  and 
dipped  pen  for  the  first  time  to  put  my  feelings  on  paper. 

It  was  a  hazy  day  in  April,  in  New  Jersey,  at  the  very 
moment  when  the  bland  winds  of  spring  were  touching  the 
dank  countryside  into  mellowness.  From  somewhere  a  slight 
and  almost  imperceptible  aroma  of  the  South  had  threaded 
in,  a  mere  whiff  of  heavy  scent.  Below  me,  aslant  in  long 
chairs,  two  lads  were  strumming  their  banjos.  Above  me  a 
theological  student  was  intoning  his  first  sermon  with  many 
a  rise  and  fall  of  a  husky  voice.  In  the  vague  distance  a 
tennis  match  was  on,  marked  by  shrill  laughter  and  hearty 
guffaws. 

But  I  was  not  writing  of  New  Jersey. 

I  was  trying  to  depict  what  I  still  look  upon  as  one  of  the 
happiest  moments  of  my  life — flat  on  my  tummy  above  the 
fiddley  hatch  of  a  Scottish  tramp,  with  the  Sea  of  Japan 
opening  before  me,  a  feather  of  brown  sail  aslant  of  the 
horizon,  above  me  the  last  of  an  Ohkotsk  Sea  gale  drumming 
into  the  blue  and  a  new,  freshly  colored  sun  streaming 
down  on  my  shoulders. 

I  suppose  I  wrote  some  four  thousand  words,  with  great 
astonishment  at  my  own  facility.  It  was  deep  dusk  when 
I  had  finished.  The  banjoists  were  still  serenading  a  few 
misty  stars.  But  I  had  (so  it  seemed)  caught  at  a  pro- 
founder  and  sweeter  melody. 

I  sent  my  sixteen  pages  of  heavily  written  manuscript  to 
S.  S.  McClure — because  I  had  just  read  some  stories  in  his 
latest  issue  that  appealed  to  me.  Within  five  days  I  got 
back  my  manuscript,  with  five  pages  of  Mr.  McClure's 
unforgettable  scrawl  telling  me  I  some  day  would  write  a 
big  story. 

That  he  was  a  poor  prophet  doesn't  matter.     I  believed 


272  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

him.  I  was  twenty-two  and  capable  of  enormous  credulity. 
I  sat  me  down,  careless  of  the  call  of  my  remunerative  toil, 
and  wrote  again.  Once  more  McClure  patted  me  on  the 
back. 

I  wrote  again,  and  sent  it  this  time  to  The  Saturday  Eve 
ning  Post.  (You  see,  I  had  gained  confidence.  The  story 
came  back,  with  a  nice  letter  telling  me  to  send  it  to 
Munsey's. 

This  injunction  I  obeyed.  Within  three  days  I  received 
a  note  which  informed  me  that  if  I  was  reliable,  honest, 
civil  to  my  superiors,  of  good  family,  recognized  by  the 
elite  and  able  to  furnish  a  single  banker's  reference,  Munsey's 
would  buy. 

Here  was  an  impasse.  My  parents  were  in  Europe.  I 
had  come  of  good  family,  but  it  was  doubtful  in  my  mind 
whether  the  representatives  of  my  ancestors  would  look  com 
placently  on  my  writing  for  fiction  magazines.  The  only 
banker  I  knew  was  notoriously  a  mean  man,  a  man  four 
thousand  miles  away,  unapproachable,  brutal  and  malign. 

Who  would  legitimize  my  maiden  effort? 

I  thought  and  thought.  I  consulted  my  single  friend.  He 
opined  (after  reading  the  story,  a  copy  of  which  I  handed 
him)  that  I  was  in  the  very  devil  of  a  fix. 

"Nobody,"  he  said,  "would  like  that  story." 

Now  he  spoke  the  family  tongue,  the  lingua  franca  of 
my  honored  ancestors.  "Nobody"  meant  "none  of  our 
people." 

I  spent  the  night  in  misery.  But  at  daybreak  I  remem 
bered  that  a  most  estimable  gentleman,  fully  recognized  by 
my  family  as  "placed,"  had  written  fiction.  I  dressed  my 
self  carefully  and  travelled  far  and  laid  my  Munsey  letter 
on  the  desk  of  Bliss  Perry.  He  was  complacent.  His 
position  was  assured.  He  wrote  the  required  note  to  Mr. 
Munsey.  I  sent  it.  For  some  reason  Mr.  Munsey  (who 
had  never,  I  am  sure,  had  the  faintest  business  connection 
with  Mr.  Perry)  stretched  a  point  and  sent  me  a  check 
for  twenty-five  dollars. 

I  had  a  deuce  of  a  time  cashing  this  check.    The  coin  in 


JOHN    FLEMING   WILSON  273 

hand,  I  went  to  New  York.  I  went  ten  thousand  miles.  I 
circled  the  earth.  I  landed  in  San  Francisco  months  later 
with  the  last  two  bits  thereof  in  my  pocket.  And  when  I 
went  to  the  Occidental  Hotel  to  get  my  accumulated  mail 
Colonel  Hooper  drew  me  aside. 

"There  is  a  story  by  a  chap  of  your  name  in  the  last 
Munseys"  he  said,  mysteriously.  "Have  you  any  money? 
Your  father's  credit  is  good,  you  know." 

I  borrowed  twenty-five  dollars  from  him  and  spent  ten 
cents  on  the  magazine.  I  read  my  story,  and  re-read  it, 
and  folded  it  into  my  pocket.  By  the  mercy  of  God  nobody 
else  remembers  that  yarn.  But  I  do.  It  is  still  (to  me)  the 
best  thing  I  ever  did.  Tucked  away  somewhere  in  its  in 
volved  English  are  the  words  that  form  the  cryptogram  of 
boyish  happiness,  ambition  and  passion.  I'm  afraid  some 
times  I  have  lost  the  key.  But  still — in  certain  moments — 
I  discover  again  in  those  pages  the  legend  of  my  youth. 

OWEN  WISTER 

What  is  the  proper  definition  of  a  maiden  effort?  Does 
it  mean  one's  first  professional  appearance  as  an 
author,  or  does  it  mean  one's  first  appearance  as  an 
author  in  any  print  whatsoever?  In  my  doubt,  let  me 
assume  that  each  of  these  appearances  is  a  maiden  effort,  and 
then  I  cannot  fail  to  be  at  least  half  right. 

The  boys  of  St.  Paul's  School,  Concord,  New  Hampshire, 
have  published  for  many  years  a  paper  known  as  The  Horcz 
Scholastics.  To  that  school  I  went  in  September,  1873. 
I  was  then  thirteen  years  old. 

One  of  the  older  boys,  an  editor  of  the  paper,  who  knew 
me  at  home,  came  to  me  and  asked  if  I  would  try  to  write 
something. 

A  few  months  previous  to  this  I  had  been  in  London 
and  upon  a  visit  to  the  Polytechnic  Institution  had  gone 
down  in  a  diving  bell,  which  made  descents  into  a  pool 
several  times  every  afternoon.  This  had  been  an  interest 
ing  experience,  accompanied  by  considerable  pain  in  the  ears, 


274  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

owing  to  the  compressed  air,  and  the  memory  of  it  was 
vivid. 

As  I  supposed  nobody  else  at  the  school  had  ever  gone 
down  in  a  diving  bell,  this  seemed  to  me  the  most  interesting 
subject  I  could  choose  for  an  article  in  the  school  paper. 

I  wrote  it.  It  was  accepted  and  printed  that  autumn ; 
it  was  the  first  of  many  contributions,  both  in  prose  and 
verse,  to  the  school  paper,  and  to  various  papers  at  Harvard 
College  a  few  years  later.  Perhaps  I  should  mention  that 
it  was  in  prose. 

Now  I  reach  what  may  seem  to  some  my  correct  maiden 
effort.  During  my  senior  year  at  Harvard,  I  wrote  eight 
lines  of  verse  upon  the  subject  of  Beethoven.  This  I  did 
not,  as  usual,  send  to  one  of  the  college  papers,  but  to  The 
Atlantic  Monthly. 

To  my  extreme  astonishment  and  pride,  these  verses  were 
accepted  and  published  in  The  Atlantic  Monthly  during  the 
year  1882,  though  I  entirely  forget  in  what  month.  I 
received  a  check  for  them,  which  I  put  away  with  such 
care  lest  it  be  lost  that  I  never  found  it  again.  At  least 
that  is  my  recollection. 

These  are  the  two  adventures,  one  of  which  must  as 
suredly  be  with  propriety  called  my  maiden  effort ;  the  choice 
of  the  propriety  I  leave  to  the  indulgent  reader. 


H.  C.  WITWER 

At  the  beginning  of  the  year  1915  I  was  reading  copy 
on  the  telegraph  desk  of  the  New  York  Evening  Sun, 
having  progressed  to  this  point  and  my  twenty-fifth 
birthday  after  several  years  as  soda  dispenser,  bathtub  sales 
man,  hotel  clerk,  press  agent,  manager  of  pugilists,  reporter, 
feature  writer  and  editor — with  various  stops  in  between  too 
humorous  to  mention. 

My  weekly  copy  reader's  tip  being  insufficient  to  support 
me  and  my  fair  young  bride  in  the  style  we  had  determined 


H.    C.   WITWER  275 

to  become  accustomed  to,  I  cast  about  for  some  field  of 
endeavor  open  to  a  bright  young  man  during  the  hours  when 
I  was  not  shaking  a  mean  blue  pencil  and  writing  "DARING 
YEGGS  GET  $50,000  GEMS,"  etc. 

I  made  no  attempt  to  dodge  tradition;  so,  being  a  news 
paper  man,  I  wrote  a  story  of  newspaper  life  for  The  Satur 
day  Evening  Post. 

Unfortunately,  I  did  not  sell  the  manuscript  to  that  rising 
young  publication,  nor  to  any  one  of  some  thirty  other  maga 
zines  to  which  I  afterwards  sent  it.  The  most  striking 
thing  about  this  yarn  was  its  title.  I  called  it  "The  Come- 
Back" — and  that's  what  it  did. 

But  it  drew  some  friendly  letters  and  a  couple  of  per 
sonal  interviews,  which  resulted  in  my  writing  a  series  of 
theatrical  yarns  in  slang  for  The  Popular  Magazine.  These 
began  in  April,  1915,  and  shortly  thereafter  I  eased  out  of 
the  newspaper  game  to  become  a  less  interesting  writer  and 
a  full-fledged  fictioneer. 

I've  published  nearly  two  hundred  stories  since  then,  five 
books,  none  of  which  indicates  that  the  mantle  of  O.  Henry 
has  fallen  upon  me,  written  some  mediocre  movies,  a  couple 
of  impossible  plays  and,  like  every  other  American  author, 
was  a  war  correspondent  in  1917-18. 

The  following  data  may  interest  lay  readers  who  wonder 
how  authors  really  live,  and  colleagues  for  purposes  of  com 
parison  : 

I  sold  a  dozen  stories  before  getting  a  hundred  dollars  for 
any  one  of  them,  and  forty-four  before  I  got  two  hundred. 
In  eighteen  months  I  hurled  thirty-six  yarns  at  the  Post 
before  getting  in  and  was  four  years  more  advancing  to  the 
criminal  rate  of  $1,500  a  story  and  being  regularly  accused 
of  plagiarizing  Ring  Lardner  by  the  best  known  columnist 
on  the  New  York  Tribune. 

That's  about  all;  and  thanks  for  listening. 


276  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

CLEMENT  WOOD 

My  maiden  effort  is  just  three  years  old.  She  is  hazel- 
eyed,  golden-haired,  and  answers  to  the  name  of 
Janet. 

Before  she  arrived,  I  could  boast  only  a  cat — a  feline  lifted 
out  of  her  natal  delicatessen  shop  to  purr  at  our  Miltonic 
salutation  of  Miss  Chaos-and-Black-Night  Wood.  Miss 
Chaos  (she  retained  her  maiden  name,  even  after  she  had 
responded  to  the  Romeoaowing  of  a  gentleman  Tom,  one 
moon-mad  August  night  in  Croton-on-Hudson),  in  defer 
ence  to  her  literary  upbringing  presented  the  family  with  a 
— you  have  conjectured  rightly — litter  of  three  kittens;  but 
that  is  three  other  tales. 

Janet  came  alone. 

Prior  to  her  appearance,  her  parents  had  perused  the  help 
ful  works  of  Mrs.  Perkins-Stetson-Gilman,  Signora  Mon- 
tessori,  and  Mrs.  Sanger,  upon  the  proper  upbringing  of  the 
young.  Her  parents  were  poor,  and  thus  necessarily  honest. 
But  when  the  judges  for  the  Newark  250th  Anniversary 
Poetry  Contest  awarded  the  quarter-thousand  Ford  wheels 
to  her  prospective  father,  there  was  no  further  obstacle  to 
paging  the  young  lady,  and  she  responded  with  proper 
promptitude.  She  should  have  been  named  Roberta  Treat 
Newarka  Wood;  but  Janet  sufficed. 

Her  earliest  recorded  remarks  adopted  a  definite  futuristic 
metier;  she  breathed  vers  libre. 

Ma-ma 
I  want 

My  brecky! 

Contact  with  a  conservative  father  led  to  a  pragmatic 
dabbling  in  rhyme,  as  when  she  enunciated: 

Nice 
Ice.  .  .  . 

See,  see. 
Hwismas  Hwee! 


CLEMENT   WOOD  277 

This  lacks  the  elaboration  of  my  first  printed  effort.  To 
visualize  the  achievement,  let  me  sketch  the  background. 

I  was  born,  at  an  early  age,  in  Tuscaloosa,  in  the  apsycho- 
lithic  state  of  Alabama.  If  you  have  once  seen  the  town 
you  cannot  fail  to  forget  it.  It  lies  to  the  left  of  the  rail 
road  and  has  a  post  office  and  one  of  the  state  residences  for 
morons.  At  the  age  of  ten  months  I  accompanied  my  parents 
to  Birmingham,  also  in  Alabama,  that  commonwealth  with 
the  Utopian  motto,  "Here  We  Rest." 

Despite  this  environment  I  was  so  precocious  that  by  my 
eleventh  year  I  had  heard  of  Roosevelt.  That  year  Theo 
dore  the  Great  visited  the  megalopolis  of  Alabama.  Quite 
spontaneously  I  hildaconklinged  this  quatrain,  which  was 
centered  on  the  first  page  of  the  weakly  Mineral  Belt 
Gazette : 

Pop!     Fizz! 
Gee  Whiz! 
Is  Teddy  coming? 
Sure  he  is! 

This  was  shown  Mr.  Roosevelt  during  a  pause  in  his 
great  speech  in  Capitol  Park.  Without  visible  hesitation  he 
continued  the  speech. 

Let  it  be  noted  that  I  am  a  staunch  advocate  of  higher 
education.  I  owe  all  to  my  collegiate  training.  It  was  a 
chance  scribble  of  the  state  university's  instructor  in  Written 
English  that  determined  my  future  career.  Upon  the  margin 
of  one  of  those  poems  cantoing  on, 

The  day  is  always  brightest 

In  Alabama. 
The  ton  is  always  lightest 

In  Alabama. 

The  heart  is  always  truest, 
Blue  Sunday  is  the  bluest, 
And  there's  only  one  Who's  Whoist 

In  Alabama. 


278  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

the  jealous  Chiron  had  annotated:  "Judging  from  your 
verse  alone,  you  had  best  stick  to  prose."  I  have  been  writ 
ing  verse  ever  since. 

I  was  regarded  as  an  arch-radical  in  the  South.  I  did  not 
like  mint  juleps. 

Accordingly,  I  came  North;  and  I  can  testify  that  with 
out  exception  the  Northeners  took  me  in,  whenever  I  was 
simple  enough.  In  passing,  I  had  inaugurated  the  Mil 
lennium  in  Birmingham  by  being  appointed,  as  a  Socialist, 
to  the  police  magistracy.  A  Socialist,  in  the  South,  is  as 
common  as  an  altruistic  New  York  landlord.  After  nine 
months  the  Millennial  Express  was  side-tracked  for  repairs; 
and  Birmingham  is  still  able  to  Jim  Crow  over  its  victory. 
Once  in  the  meridian  of  Greenwich  Village,  I  went  in  for 
archeological  research,  and  have  endeavored  to  decipher  the 
ancient  lore  of  the  post-Freudians,  and  of  the  forgotten 
worshipers  of  Jung. 

My  first  sale  was  to  one  of  the  Four  Spinsters  of  the 
magazine  world.  I  had  bombarded  the  sacred  Quaternity 
for  years;  and  finally  rebelled  against  the  postal  taxation 
without  representation  on  the  sacred  pages.  Disguised  as 
an  advertiser,  I  slipped  by  the  office  boy,  and  confronted  the 
editor  in  his  den. 

"See  here,"  I  demanded,  waving  my  last  rejected  master 
piece,  "have  you  really  read  this?" 

"Of  course  not,"  he  deprecated.    "I  am  the  editor." 

"Don't  you  read  contributions?" 

"My  time  is  occupied  improving  our  rejection  slips." 

"Why  can't  I  land?" 

He  surveyed  me  with  pitying  detachment.  "Our  readers 
accept  only  well-known  authors." 

"So  every  editor  tells  me.  How  then  can  I  become  well 
known  ?" 

For  the  first  time  in  his  career,  I  think,  that  editor  went 
through  a  mental  process.  He  came  to  the  surface  plainly 
puzzled.  "That  is  an  interesting  problem,"  he  admitted, 
".  .  .  for  you." 

"Aren't  these  verses  good?" 


CLEMENT   WOOD  279 

He  read  them  carefully.  "They're  really  excellent,  Mr. 
r — Wood.  But  I  should  venture  that  they  are  not  up  to 
your  previous  efforts." 

"Which  you  did  not  accept." 

"Quite  true.    But  we  have  a  rule — " 

"This  is  the  exception  that  proves  it." 

The  editor  recognized  this  dialect  at  once.  A  check  for 
the  poem  reached  me  precisely  twenty-four  hours  after  the 
two-years'  lapse  between  acceptance  and  publication. 

The  editor  was  removed  soon  after  my  poem  appeared;  I 
will  not  speculate  upon  the  reason.  I  have  never  sold  that 
magazine  since;  but  I  recommend  the  method  to  those  who 
have  failed  with  every  other.  And  I  keep  cheerful  by  re 
calling  that  somewhere,  somewhere,  lies  the  royalty  road  to 
success. 

MRS.  WILSON  WOODROW 

The  remembrance  of  my  first  adventure  in  Literature 
inevitably  induces  moral  reflections.     It  was  an  ex 
perience  so   painfully   disillusionizing,   so   enlighten- 
ingly  disastrous  in  its  results  that  it  has  served  to  minimize 
all  the  difficulties  of  later  years.    The  attitude  of  critics  and 
the  public  was  illuminated  for  me  as  by  fire ;  and  no  matter 
if  a  stray  wolf  lifts  up  his  voice  now  and  then,  it  is  as 
music  in  my  ears  compared  to  that  first,  blood-freezing  yell 
of  the  full  pack.     I  can  now  say  with  calm  equanimity  and 
undiminished  philosophy,  "Leave  them  howl!" 

I  was  about  eight  years  old,  and  I  shudder  now  to  think 
of  the  culpable  neglect  of  my  guardian  angels  when  I  first; 
felt  the  mighty  urge  of  self-expression.  I  had  been  stirred 
to  envy  and  emulation  by  a  more  or  less  pastoral  poem  which 
my  brother  near  my  own  age  had  composed  and  confided 
to  me. 
It  began: 

When  evening  shadows  darkly  fall, 
And  lowing  cattle  loudly  bawl, 


280  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

and  it  seemed  to  me  very  great.  But  being  an  early  feminist, 
I  saw  no  reason  why  I  should  not  also  climb  Parnassus  and 
pluck  a  flower  of  poesy  from  the  snow-clad  summits. 

So  I  took  my  slate  in  hand;  and  first  seeing  that  the 
sponge  dripped  with  water,  for  I  had  an  intuition  that  com 
position  might  be  difficult,  I  hid  behind  the  ice-house,  a 
circular,  red-brick  tower  with  a  conical  roof  at  the  rear  of 
our  garden.  There  almost  immediately  the  miracle  hap 
pened,  the  divine  fire  fell  upon  me.  I  wrote  with  ease,  and 
finished  several  stanzas  within  an  hour. 

There  it  stood,  white  against  the  background  of  my  slate  ; 
and  it  rhymed!  The  words  rhymed  sweetly,  intoxicatingly. 
It  was  me,  and  yet  not  me.  Mine  own,  and  yet  alien.  I 
had  written  it  with  tense,  cramped  fingers  and  out-thrust 
tongue,  and  yet  nothing  so  beautiful  had  been  in  my  head. 
The  mystery  of  genius  overcame  me  and  I  knew  briefly  the 
ecstasies  of  the  visionnaire. 

The  poem  itself  was  not  meditative  nor  serene  like  my 
brother's,  but  more  emotional,  more  feminine  and  therefore 
instinctively  personal,  unconsciously  conforming  to  Milton's 
dictum  that  all  poetry  should  be  simple,  sensuous  and  pas 
sionate.  A  mere  fragment  of  it  remains  in  my  memory, 
and  that  is  seared  into  my  brain : 

Only   a   face    at   the   window, 

Only  a  glad  how-de-do, 
Only  a  tender  hand-clasp, 

Only  some  kisses,  one,  two. 

The  other  stanzas  were  equally  noteworthy  and  promis 
ing,  and  now  I  felt  the  demand  of  the  artist  for  recognition, 
the  longing  to  hear  the  plaudits  of  the  world  and  feel  the 
laurel  wreath  pressed  down  upon  my  brow;  so  I  read  my 
poem  to  a  group  of  contemporaries.  They  received  it  with 
enthusiasm,  admiration  and  even  soul-warming  awe. 

But  the  secret  was  too  great  for  their  little  hearts  to  hold, 
they  babbled  it  to  their  parents  who  in  turn  babbled  it  to 
mine.  Alice  went  through  the  looking-glass,  and  found 


MRS.    WILSON    WOODROW  281 

herself  in  a  topsy-turvy  world.  My  older  brothers  and 
sisters  dramatically  declaimed  the  verses,  and  even  set  them 
to  ribald  music. 

Under  this  drastic  treatment,  I  developed  a  complex,  or 
an  inhibition,  or  something ;  for  the  love  motive  in  fiction  has 
ever  since  been  a  difficult  one  for  me  to  handle.  "Let  me 
write  adventure  or  humor  now,"  I  say  brightly  to  editors, 
"but  'don't  frow  me  in  de  briar-patch'  of  a  love  story." 

But  to  return  to  maiden  efforts.  I  continued  to  write,  but 
by  stealth.  At  last  a  stern,  sad  woman  who  had  probably 
broken  her  heart  trying  to  instill  a  little  knowledge  into  my 
unreceptive  brain,  unearthed  some  of  these  attempts  and 
seized  on  them  eagerly.  They  represented  to  her  the  one 
dawning  ray  of  intelligence  in  what  she  considered  an  other 
wise  darkened  intellect,  and  she  intimated  that  since  I 
showed  no  aptitude  for  anything  else  I  might  as  well  write. 

I  took  her  at  her  word.  My  reasons  or  apologies  for 
continuing  on  this  path  are  those  of  the  man  who  used  to 
say:  "I  drink  because  I  like  it.  I  like  the  taste,  and  I  like 
the  effect."  So  I  write  and  write  and  have  no  intention  of 
stopping.  If  this  be  a  threat,  make  the  most  of  it. 

ANNE  HELENA  WOODRUFF 

An  account  of  my  maiden  effort  must  include  all  my 
efforts  or  there  is  no  story  to  tell.     I  was  well  on 
towards  middle  age  before  it  occurred  to  me  that  I 
might  do  something  in  the  writing  line  myself,  and  I  was 
poorly    equipped    for    the   venture.      My    education — what 
there  was  of  its — was  acquired  in  a  country  school,  supple 
mented  by  six  months  at  the  State   Normal  Academy  at 
Brockport,  New  York,  and  a  short  course  in  a  Correspond 
ence  School  of  Journalism. 

From  a  very  early  age  there  was  magic  for  me  in  the 
sight  of  a  book.  I  remember  to  this  day  my  delight  at  find 
ing  a  small  volume  in  my  Christmas  stocking — a  book  devoid 
of  embellishment,  bearing  the  title  of  "Friendship's  Token." 


282  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

A  tiny  volume  of  verse,  it  was,  its  contents  better  suited  to 
the  mature  mind  than  mine  at  that  time. 

My  first  literary  venture  was  in  verse,  which  I  timidly 
sent  to  The  Presbyterian  Review  of  Toronto.  Its  appear 
ance  in  print,  without  any  notification  of  its  acceptance, 
almost  frightened  me,  so  astounding  was  the  fact  that  it 
had  been  deemed  worthy  of  a  place  in  the  pages  of  that 
conservative  publication.  It  gave  me  the  stimulus  I  needed 
to  persevere  when  in  danger  of  being  snowed  under  by  a 
multitude  of  rejection-slips,  thus  bringing  my  literary  career 
to  an  untimely  end. 

My  first  check,  for  two  dollars,  was  from  Good  House 
keeping,  and  not  even  a  check  from  St.  Nicholas  for  a 
larger  amount,  received  later,  had  power  to  give  me  the 
thrill  I  experienced  at  the  sight  of  that  small  check. 

Since  that  time  I  have  plodded  on  with  varying  degrees 
of  success — and  failure.  Editors  have  been  kind  and  cour 
teous,  with  here  and  there  an  exception  to  break  the  mo 
notony.  Since  this  is  a  "confession,"  the  unpleasant  must 
have  a  place  as  well  as  the  reverse.  In  one  instance  the 
editor  scribbled  on  the  rejection-slip,  "Better  confine  your 
self  to  subjects  with  which  you  are  acquainted" — good  ad 
vice,  which  I  have  faithfully  tried  to  follow  ever  since.  I 
felt  no  resentment,  and  afterwards  sent  articles  to  that  self 
same  editor,  who  accepted  and  printed  them.  Another  and 
more  depressing  comment  was  to  the  effect  that  no  "inferior 
matter  was  desired"  by  that  particular  publication.  Doubt 
less  the  article  was  inferior,  and  nobody  to  blame  but  myself. 

My  three  books  were  juveniles. 

The  first,  "Betty  and  Bob,"  was  brought  out  in  1903  by 
the  Frederick  A.  Stokes  Company.  It  fell  short  of  a  thou 
sand  copies,  after  which  I  was  to  receive  a  royalty  of  ten 
per  cent.  It  is  now  out  of  print.  The  second  book  was 
"Three  Boys  and  a  Girl,"  published  by  the  Western  Metho 
dist  Book  Concern.  It  was  written  to  the  title,  "A  Boy's 
Business  Ventures,"  which  I  still  consider  more  appropriate 
to  the  story  than  the  other.  The  publishers,  however,  were 
of  a  different  opinion.  "The  Pond  in  the  Marshy  Meadow" 


ANNE    HELENA   WOODRUFF  283 

— a  sort  of  Nature  Fairy  story — was  brought  out  by  the 
Saalfield  Publishing  Company,  of  Akron,  Ohio.  I  have 
heard  this  book  called  "a  peach."  The  Press  gave  it  a  fine 
send-off,  one  reviewer  going  so  far  as  to  assert  that  "not 
since  Westward  Ho'  had  there  appeared  such  another 
juvenile." 

The  Press  has  been  kinder  to  my  books  than  has  the  pur 
chasing  public.  The  books  are  a  failure  financially  but  my 
thanks  are  due  to  the  readers  of  those  three  publishing  houses ; 
for  their  favorable  verdicts  enabled  me  to  realize  my  am 
bition  and  to  become  the  accredited  author  of  three  really, 
truly,  sure-enough  books,  and  to  leave  a  few  faint  footprints 
on  the  sands  of  time. 

I  have  a  horror  of  venturing  bodily  into  the  editorial 
presence,  but  send  out  my  wares  from  the  safety  and  security 
of  the  chimney  corner — figuratively  speaking — where  no 
irate  and  long-suffering  editor  can  get  at  me  with  anything 
more  deadly  than  a  rejection-slip  which,  though  deadly 
enough,  in  some  respects,  is  wholly  inadequate  when  pitted 
against  the  dogged  persistence  of  the  literary  aspirant. 

If  swiftly  failing  eyesight  did  not  prevent,  I  should  hope 
to  accomplish  something  worth  while,  for  what  I  have  men 
tioned  here  seems  to  me  now  as  simply  a  maiden  effort. 


HAROLD  BELL  WRIGHT 

Considering  the  painful  fact  that  every  mother's  son  and 
daughter  of  the  million  or  more  professional  critics 
will  most  strenuously  assert  that  I  have  yet  to  accom 
plish  "my  first  literary  effort,"  this  request  from  the  Editor, 
I  confess,  is  rather  a  good  joke.     However,  a  careful  study 
of  the  formidable  list  of  names  submitted  for  my  encourage 
ment  heartens  me.     Upon  second  thought  I  am  convinced 
that  in  such  a  company  of  distinguished   authors,   I   shall 
stand  alone. 

I,  alone,  of  the  whole  ungodly  crew  have  no  literary  ef 
forts,  maiden  or  matured,  to  confess. 


284  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

The  vital  question  of  literature  being  thus  settled  to  the 
satisfaction  of  everybody,  there  is  left  for  me  nothing  but 
to  offer  the  sad  tale  of  my  first  crime.  My  initial  offense 
in  the  long  series  of  atrocities  that  brought  me  to  my  present 
degradation  was  committed  in  The  Christian  Standard,  a  re 
ligious  weekly  published  in  Cincinnati.  As  I  remember,  the 
year  was  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Ninety-five.  Thank  God 
I  have  forgotten  the  details.  Discerning  judges  will  not 
fail  to  note  the  significance  of  this,  my  first  choice  of  a 
publisher,  in  its  bearing  upon  my  infamous  career  and  so 
will  properly  credit  me  with  genius  of  a  sort. 

That  I  was  not,  in  those  young  days,  sufficiently  depraved 
by  nature  to  endure  without  a  struggle  the  poignant  emotions 
entailed  by  such  success,  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  eight 
years  passed  before  I  was  hardened  by  various  other  minor 
attempts  to  the  point  of  perpetrating  my  first  novel. 

This  outrage,  too,  was  published  by  a  religious  weekly, 
The  Christian  Century,  or  rather,  to  be  exact,  I  should  say 
it  was  published  in  part.  The  editor  cut  it — he  cut  it  re 
ligiously — one  might  say  he  carved  it.  In  answer  to  my 
protests  this  Christian  editorial  martyr  explained  gently, 
"But,  my  dear  boy,  your  drunken  men  actually  stagger; 
and  really  you  know,  my  readers  do  not  like  to  see  such 
things." 

Years  have  taught  me  that  the  editor  was  right;  drunken 
men  must  not  stagger.  But  the  editor  did  not  go  far 
enough — he  really  should  have  slaughtered  the  whole  stag 
gering  monstrosity. 

Later,  Mr.  E.  W.  Reynolds,  then  a  Chicago  book-seller, 
for  reasons  best  known  to  himself  forced  this  fearful  horror 
upon  his  defenseless  customers — staggers  and  all — and  I  was 
thus  established  in  my  deplorable  profession. 


EDITH    FRANKLIN   WYATT  285 

EDITH  FRANKLIN  WYATT 

When  we  were  children,  my  sister  and  I  were  always 
playing  games  with  the  various  imaginary  figures 
who  surround  all  children;  and  when  I  was  about 
ten,  and  she  about  six,  on  rainy  Saturdays  and  Sundays  we 
used  to  write  down  the  adventures  of  these  persons  in  a 
magazine  called  Childhood. 

The  issue  of  Childhood  consisted  invariably  of  a  single 
copy  laboriously  printed  with  a  lead  pencil  by  me,  lavishly 
illustrated  by  my  sister  with  fktive  characters  all  presented 
in  profile.  We  were  the  publishers,  editors,  contributors  and 
illustrators  of  this  magazine;  and,  with  a  sympathetic  friend 
of  seven,  formed  its  entire  circulation.  The  leading  fea 
ture  was  a  serial  story — "Griselda  Maidenhood  Smith"—— 
narrating  the  adventures  of  a  little  girl  of  Ohio  pioneer 
days  who  wore  pantalets  and  rode  in  stage  coaches  and  on 
river  boats.  She  was  accompanied  in  her  perpetual  journey- 
ings  by  a  faithful  servant,  Nance,  whose  sole  property  was 
a  dish-pan. 

From  the  publication  of  a  single  hand-printed  copy  of  my 
works  for  an  audience  of  three,  I  emerged  a  few  years  later 
as  a  playwright,  in  possession  of  two  hand-written  copies 
of  a  drama  of  the  occult,  "The  Veiled  Lady,"  whose  audi 
ence  and  actors  were  four — my  sister  and  myself  and  two 
other  girls. 

From  my  audience  of  four,  and  my  two  copies  of  "The 
Veiled  Lady"  I  advanced  at  about  fourteen  with  a  sudden 
leap. 

Virginia  Tracy,  then  an  energetic,  plunging  child  of  thir 
teen,  appeared  at  Miss  Rice's  Higher  School  for  Girls  to 
fill  me  with  an  admiration  that  proved  to  be  life-long.  Miss 
Tracy  had  written  profusely — poems,  stories  and  historical 
essays.  She  was  engaged  on  a  play — I  think  about  a  hunch 
back  concealed  in  a  chimney  in  Paris;  and  I,  on  a  second 
drama,  "A  Bad  Beginning  but  a  Good  Ending,"  about  a 
heroine  whose  parents  opposed  her  love  for  an  artist.  Un 
impeded  by  these  undertakings  or  by  our  studies  we  initiated 


286  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

with  four  other  girls  a  monthly  magazine,  Sparks — well 
named  in  one  respect,  as  it  was  destined  to  fly  upward  into 
nothingness. 

Sparks  had  a  serial,  a  historical  novel,  editorials,  stories, 
and  contributions,  known  to  us  as  "jokes,"  though  as  I  re 
call  them  I  cannot  imagine  why.  We  all  wrote  all  the  de 
partments  of  the  magazine.  Miss  Tracy's  uncle  helpfully 
supplied  us  with  an  apparatus  of  carbon  pencil  and  carbon 
paper  from  which  by  diligent  industry  and  rapid  penman 
ship,  four  copies  of  Sparks  could  be  produced  in  from  three 
to  four  afternoons — three  of  these  copies  being  all  but  illegi 
ble.  These  four  copies  circulated  among  the  eighty  or 
ninety  pupils  of  Miss  Rice's  School. 

But  the  strain  of  publication  for  the  publishers  and  the 
strain  of  reading  for  the  readers  of  the  last  three  most  diffi 
cult  copies  proved  too  arduous  for  all  of  us :  and,  after  three 
issues,  Sparks  expired  forever. 

From  the  circulation  of  my  works  among  three  persons, 
four  persons  and  Miss  Rice's  School,  I  progressed  to  an 
appearance  in  actual  print  in  two  college  magazines  at 
Bryn  Mawr — The  Lantern  and  Unburnt  Matches,  this 
last  a  rich  miscellany  of  all  our  rejected  works  assembled 
by  the  class  of  Ninety-six.  As  with  Childhood  and  Sparks, 
the  phenomenon  of  Unburnt  Matches  was  a  splendid  though 
unconscious  exhibition  of  social  unity  in  expression — the 
writers,  publishers,  editors  and  readers  of  Unburnt  Matches 
being  all  the  same. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  the  appearance  of  my  efforts  up 
to  this  point  may  be  described  strictly  as  publication.  It  was 
not  so  much  that  my  writings  were  made  public  as  that  they 
became  less  private. 

In  the  Autumn  of  1897,  the  Chap-Book  of  Chicago  ac 
cepted  and  published  two  sketches  of  mine,  "The  Wolf  in 
Sheep's  Clothing"  and 


EDITH    FRANKLIN   WYATT  287 

THANKSGIVING  DAY  AT  EAST  POMFRET 

It  was  the  last  Thursday  in  November.  The  weather 
was  crisp,  clear  and  cold — the  typical  weather  of  a  New 
England  Thanksgiving. 

The  local  color  was  shining  fresh  and  bright  all  over 
East  Pomfret,  Maine,  and  dear  Grandma  Blodgett  was 
bustling  about,  in  an  atmosphere  redolent  of  mincemeat 
and  pumpkin  pie,  among  the  customary  troops  of  bright- 
faced  children. 

A  roaring  fire  was  flaming  in  the  great  fireplace;  and 
Ezekiel,  the  hired  man,  dragging  in  the  heavy,  bumping 
firelogs,  was  cracking  paragraph  after  paragraph  of  dry 
Yankee  jests. 

The  young  people  were  all  clustered  around  their  fa 
vorite  Aunt  Prudence,  a  blue-eyed  maiden  lady,  with  a 
delicate  flush  still  glowing  in  her  rose-leaf  cheeks.  Her 
lover,  Uncle  Ben,  had,  of  course,  been  lost  at  sea  twenty 
years  before. 

After  four  pages  of  Thanksgiving  Dinner  and  New  Eng 
land  bustle,  interspersed  with  gentle  counsel  from  Aunt 
Prudence  and  hearty  wisdom  from  Ezekiel,  the  old-fashioned 
knocker  sounded. 

Deborah,  flushed  with  the  exertion  of  handling  great  plat 
ters  of  meat  and  huge  dishes  of  pies,  flew  to  the  door.  Upon 
the  step  stood  a  tall,  stalwart,  rough-bearded  stranger. 

"Deborah,  my  hearty,"  he  roared,  "don't  you  know 
me?  Shiver  my  timbers — it's  little  Ben,  come  back 
after  all  these  years.  But  lie  low.  We  mustn't  shock 
mother." 

His  precaution  was  too  late;  for  the  ears  of  love  are  quick, 
and  Grandma  Blodgett  had  heard,  from  the  dining  room, 
the  tones  of  the  strange  and  yet  familiar  voice. 


288  MY  MAIDEN  EFFORT 

She  hastened  into  the  hall;  and  in  an  instant  her  mother's 
eyes  had  pierced  the  disguise  of  years  and  tan,  and  she  had 
cast  herself  into  the  arms  of  the  weather-beaten  stranger. 

There  were  three  pages  of  general  conversation. 

They  had  all  admired  the  sharks'  teeth,  the  sea-beans,  the 
sandalwood  fans,  the  India  shawls,  and  the  elephants'  tusks 
which  Uncle  Ben  had  brought  in  the  wonderful  little  teak- 
wood  chest  he  had  carried  there  under  his  arm. 

When  they  had  exhausted  themselves  in  praises,  Uncle 
Ben,  with  a  merry  twinkle  in  his  honest  blue  eyes,  quietly 
drew  from  his  pocket  a  small  package,  and  placed  it  on  the 
table. 

"Every  Thanksgiving,"   he  said,   "I   have  read  the 
magazine  stories." 

He  lighted  a  match  and  applied  it  to  the  little  parcel. 
"This  kind  of  thing  must  be  stopped,"  he  said. 

There  was  a  loud  explosion;  and  Grandma  Blodgett, 
sweet  Aunt  Prudence,  the  Thanksgiving  cheer,  the  dry, 
humorous  and  rough-bearded  Uncle  Ben  himself,  were  all 
blown  up  together. 


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